


To Break a Dream

by Wordsplat



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Hurt Steve, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Psychological Torture, Steve Angst, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-25
Updated: 2013-05-16
Packaged: 2017-12-09 10:55:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 34,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/773410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wordsplat/pseuds/Wordsplat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve is kidnapped and tortured to prove a point to the American people at large. Warning: Graphic depictions of multiple kinds of torture. Not for the squeamish.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Tony was never going to forgive himself.

To be fair, Tony had hated himself since he was old enough to understand the concept of hate, which, being both a genius and a Stark, was too young for him to even recall. Self-hatred was in the Stark genetic code, but there was a special level of loathing, a special level of  _hell_ for people who caused the death of Captain America.

And no matter what anyone said, this was and would always be his fault.

He was the genius, after all, the futurist, the man fool enough to think he could prepare for everything. He should have amped up security. Should have planted trackers on his teammates the day they moved in. Should have known that Steve's daily runs would be used as an opening one of these days.

But he'd assumed—they'd all assumed—that Steve was invulnerable. He was their strong, fearless leader, after all, capable of warding off anyone or anything foolish enough to attack him. He held them together, he always had, and Tony cared about Steve; more than Steve knew, more than Tony himself cared to admit.

And yet, because Tony was a reckless asshole, the last thing they'd done was argue.

It was stupid and pointless and it had been the same as any other fight they'd had, Steve stubbornly insisting that Tony stop putting himself in unnecessary danger and Tony stubbornly insisting he was just doing his job. Steve had even given him an out at the end, but Tony had been too god damn proud to take it.

" _Tony." Steve ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "Will you just_ listen  _for once?"_

" _I told you, I calculated the risks, and it was the best shot we'd have at taking him down—"_

" _But at what cost?" Steve shouted, surging forward as if to grab Tony by the shirt but stopping himself at the last second. His hands were outstretched, and he quickly closed them into fists, "In exchange for you, for your life? That's not a trade I'm willing to make, even if you are."_

" _Can't afford to lose another soldier, can you?" Tony just sneered._

" _Tony, for God's sake," Steve snapped, "It's_ you _I don't want to lose. Not Iron Man. You. Why can't you understand that?"_

_Steve was vulnerable, then; he had a face like he couldn't make up his mind about saying more, like he was conflicted. Tony could have let it be, could have dropped the fight. Steve was clearly acting out of concern, nothing more. But that concern hit a little too close for Tony's comfort, so instead he opened his fat mouth._

" _Oh, sure." Tony just rolled his eyes. "Like you give a damn about the alcoholic in a tin suit throwing himself in the line of fire. Let me guess, Fury rode your ass about watching out for your number-one source of funding, yeah?"_

" _Tony—"_

" _Save it, Captain Perfect. Can't I just get ten minutes without you in my fucking face all the god damn time?"_

_A muscle went tight in Steve's jaw, but he turned and left the lab without another word. Tony considered it a win._

Now he just considered himself the lowest form of life to ever crawl out of hell.

If he hadn't told Steve to leave, Steve wouldn't have been out in the open, wouldn't have been shot at. If Tony hadn't been such a proud, self-righteous asshole, Steve wouldn't have died thinking Tony just wanted him out of his face. Instead, Steve died thinking Tony hated him, because Tony had been too afraid to tell him the opposite.

Tony was never,  _ever_  going to forgive himself.

"Anything?" he demanded over the com.

He and Thor were in the air, headed southwest following the reported direction the squad of helicopters had gone. Bruce was still on call, while Natasha and Clint were rounding up witnesses with SHIELD's assistance.

Four minutes and counting since the call.

"We've got witnesses aplenty. SHIELD's doing their best to minimize panic as we take them into custody but it's slow going." Natasha relayed over the comm.

"Anything I can  _act_  on?" Tony corrected.

"They're all pretty shook up, Stark," Clint added, "These guys made a hell of a scene. It's gonna take a while to sort out exactly what happened."

It was true, the whole thing was a disaster. They didn't know much yet, other than that there had been helicopters and a  _lot_ of shooting involved. It was confirmed that there had been multiple assailants, and preliminary reports indicated that they'd descended from helicopters, circled around Steve, and shot off at least a dozen rounds at passerby and Steve alike. When Steve went down, they'd scooped him up and taken off, all in under a couple minutes.

"Thank god," Clint muttered to himself, then, louder and to Tony, "Stark, those weren't gunshots, those were  _tranquilizers._ We've got no reports of any dead or wounded civilians, we've got no reason to believe they used something different on Steve. Best bet says he's alive but tranqed to all hell. If we're lucky, they miscalculated dosage and he'll wake up and give em hell."

"Fingers crossed." Tony nodded his agreement, trying to keep his tone light, but he almost dropped out of the sky in sheer relief.

Steve wasn't dead.

Tony wasn't sure what he'd have done if he'd have caught up with the assailants and all he'd had to bring home was a body, but he knew it wouldn't have been pretty, and it wouldn't have ended well for anyone involved.

"Stark, you listening?"

"Uh," Tony coughed, "Yeah, yeah. What's up?"

"We've got a report of three helicopters—which preliminary witness reports agree on—southeast of your location. SHIELD's a minute and a half behind you."

"On it," Tony nodded, changing direction, "Thor, you with me?"

"Indeed, Man of Iron!" Thor boomed, furious, "I shall find they who have taken our friend from us, and I shall mortar the ground with their bones!"

"Me too, buddy," Tony chuckled darkly, "Me too."

In spite of everyone's best efforts, they lost track of him in the end.

Tony had to be all but physically dragged back to the Tower by Thor, who reminded him that Steve would be best served if Tony searched for him after "rest and repast". Clint and Natasha were hung up at SHIELD the rest of the day and late into the night dealing with the dozens of witnesses, not to mention the messy aftermath of a dozen civilians being tranquilized in broad daylight.

They didn't get much, just confirmation of all their initial suspicions, and no useful information. Tony insisted on being kept in the loop about everything anyway; he, Bruce, and SHIELD's top analytical brains were pouring over all they knew, but there wasn't much.

There'd been three helicopters, and indistinctive ones if the civilian reports were anything to go by. There'd been four shooters total, if civilian reports could be believed, and Steve had taken at least twenty tranqs before he'd submitted. This meant either the drug took a long time to take, or they didn't have any special drugs and had just managed to temporarily overload Steve's system. Tony sure as hell hoped for the latter.

The kidnappers were nondescript, dressed head to toe in black, ski masks and all. There were no distinctive features to identify them by, and none of them had said a word to analyze or interpret.

They were either professionals, or very, very prepared first-timers.

Tony could see it going either way, and he spent hours debating with himself, tormenting himself, changing his mind every few minutes. The attackers had known to cover their faces and wear black, the helicopters and tranquilizers meant they had resources, and that was a hell of a thing to try on pure guts with first-time nerves.

Then again, certain reports stated that they hadn't all been in uniform. Some of them hadn't worn gloves, some had worn sneakers instead of combat boots. A couple of the less shaken witnesses even claimed that upon retrospect, the shooting had been somewhat sloppy. The evidence might've even backed that up; it was hard to tell what shots had missed because targets had moved and what had missed because of the attackers' poor aim.

Then again, they might've just been more focused on Steve and not aiming at civilians except to keep them at bay, which would suggest having done something similar before, and…

It just kept going and going, round and round in his head with no end.

"You shouldn't still be up."

"I've stayed up a helluva lot later for things a helluva lot less important," Tony just snorted, slurring only a bit as he spun in his chair to face the intruder to his workshop.

"Perhaps," Natasha agreed, not moving from the entrance. She was eyeing him like he was another one of her opponents, assessing him and the best way to get him to do what she wanted, "But you'll function better tomorrow if you've slept."

"Can't sleep," Tony grunted, directing the comment more into his tumbler of scotch than to her. He knocked it back, savoring the crisp burn of it down his throat.

"Steve wouldn't like you drinking over him."

"Then Steve can get his star-spangled ass back here and stop me."

She eyed him a long moment. Then, because Natasha Romanov was nothing if not a woman who knew how to hit where it hurt,

"We're going to need you tomorrow, and any mistakes you make because you're too hungover to know better could hurt our chances of finding him alive. You can drink yourself into an early grave once we've got him back, but don't you dare take him with you."

Then she was gone, disappearing from the shop as silently as she'd entered. Tony stared into his glass a long, painful moment, swirling the amber liquid. He ached to taste that warm, smooth burn, ached to feel the pleasant numbness he knew would soon follow. The tingling detachment that would stretch through him from the tips of his fingers to the curl of his toes, washing away the guilt that threatened to consume him.

His hand tightened at that until his knuckles were white, and before he could register what he was doing the glass was shattering against the opposite wall and he was stalking out of the workshop. Who was he to try and quell his guilt when Steve was out there, potentially dead, all because Tony couldn't keep his fucking mouth shut?

He deserved his guilt.

Tony didn't manage to sleep that night, or the next. SHIELD was pulling all their resources, and both Clint and Natasha were working around the clock. Thor and Bruce kept themselves busy as best they could, and Tony tried to do the same. He went into SHIELD a couple times, did anything they asked of him—patrols, background checks on potential suspects, anything. But when they couldn't use him, Tony just felt…lost.

He tried to eat, but it only made him feel sick. He tried to sleep, but just ended up tossing and turning until his thoughts were too much to be alone with. He couldn't bring himself to drink again, Natasha's words ringing too painfully in his head, so he turned to work. For the first time in his life, he begged Pepper for it; tech work, maintenance work, even paperwork. She gave it to him with minimal prying into his emotional wellbeing—they both knew he was a wreck and was going to be until they found Steve, any fussing was pointless—and he drowned himself in it.

Then, a week after Steve's kidnapping, they got the video.

* * *

Steve was still depressed at times.

Post-traumatic stress disorder, they called it now. Most soldiers had it in some form or another once they left the battlefield, at least according to his SHIELD-mandated therapist, and Steve wasn't surprised. When your entire day-to-day life was once consumed by nothing but gunfire and strategy and survival, it was hard to wake up one day and have someone tell you that just like that, it's over.

Because that's what  _we won_ meant, really.

It's over.

And what's left, after that? After war, after sweat and blood and battle, how do you find something else to fill your time that  _matters_ the same way war did? War was purpose, war was strength and honor and courage, and it was hard to feel the same enthusiasm for anything else.

At least, that was how he'd felt about World War II. He'd considered re-enlisting; hell, it had been the first thing on his mind once he'd gotten over the  _I've missed 70 years of my life_ thing. Then he'd done his homework, gone to the library and the bookstore and read everything he could get his hands on, educated himself the only way he knew how in this modern world where the only connection he had lied for a living.

And he knew he couldn't enlist again.

This wasn't his war. This was about oil and drug trade, not about human lives and protecting the little guy. Thing was, the more he read, the more he learned that even  _his_ war wasn't his war. War, the only thing he knew how to do, the only thing he'd ever thought had been unequivocally right—had changed. His war had been in Europe, had been in liberating civilians and pushing out invaders and spreading the idea of freedom. The more he read about the war after he went down, the more he felt sick—the US had launched aerial attacks on the Japanese, had  _bombed civilians._

His country had done the very thing they'd been condemning others for doing, but like everything else in America these days, they'd had to do it bigger and better than anyone else.

Steve  _hated it._

Hated himself for not being there, for not staying alive long enough to fight his superiors and change people's minds against bombing civilians. Hated his country for changing, for not upholding the ideologies it had sold him, for being just as capable of destruction and massacre as the enemies they'd fought against.

To be honest, for a while, Steve had just hated everything.

He'd been dumped into this century, where he could read about the aftermath and wonder if he'd made any real difference at all. Where he could read about things like Watergate and Vietnam, about the war in Korea and the lack of action in Rwanda. Where he couldn't help but wonder if America had ever really been the way he'd seen it and they'd just lost their way, or if he was the misguided one, naïve enough to believe he'd ever really been fighting for anything as simple as truth, justice, and the American way.

Once, a long time ago, he could remember asking Bucky what purpose Captain America served outside of combat. It was a foolish question—there would always be something to fight for.

He would always be a soldier.

He was just a different kind of soldier now, a soldier for the Avengers. The Avengers had given him a new purpose, a better one; there was something so much clearer about fighting a supervillain. They were bullies who wanted to hurt people, control them, manipulate them, and stopping them was perhaps harder than gunning down a Nazi, but it was clearer.

It was unquestionably  _right._

Not to mention he didn't know where he'd be without his teammates. Chances were he'd still be drowning in that gulf of uncertainty about his usefulness in this new world, but they never let him dwell. They never treated him in either of the extremes, like he was so fragile he might crack at any moment or like he was some invincible, untouchable perfection.

He was just human. They all were, no matter what the public seemed to think of them. They all had their fair share of skeletons in their closets, nightmares that kept them awake at night, and they managed to strike the balance of having people to talk to, without anyone pushing too far too fast. They understood each other in a way almost no one else quite could; they learned to trust each other, to rely on each other.

It was more than Steve ever would have hoped for in those first months out of the ice. He'd fallen into this life, embraced it as best he could, and he was…he was honestly happy. It was a strange thought, but when he didn't think about it too hard, he just  _was._

He got up early, went for a morning run every day. He cooked breakfast for the team with Clint, their other early riser to everyone's surprise. He usually read some in the late mornings, then wrestled with Thor or did hand-to-hand with Natasha. He had his afternoon chat with Bruce over tea, then made himself and Tony sandwiches so the man didn't pass out in the workshop again. He usually spent the rest of his day down there, sketching or reading or just talking. Then they all ate dinner together and argued over what movie to watch that night, and once or twice a week they'd save the world.

Normal.

That morning, he'd gone about his day like he went about any other day, with the steadfast determination that this team, this family, was something worth fighting for, worth living for. The idea that he'd been brought to the future for a purpose, that there were no accidents, that he belonged here because he was needed here.

Start and stop. Rinse and repeat.

Then they'd taken him.

Whoever they were, they hadn't been cautious—they were either very stupid, or very well-prepared. Considering they'd developed a drug strong enough to knock him out, and had him in restraints he couldn't break through by the time he woke up, he suspected it was the latter.

He came to groggily at first, but after a moment or two he could feel his head clearing. He didn't know how long it had been since he'd been taken, but judging by how hungry he was he'd guess at least half a day. He was pinned to a wall, and his head ached something fierce. His memory was somewhat lacking, and he could vaguely remember running, lots of shots, but other than that it blurred.

Never a good thing.

He was held down spread eagle, and no amount of tugging could so much as loosen his hands and feet. They were held in place by small, pebble-looking things, each no larger than a penny. There was one in the palm of each of his hands, and one on each of his ankles. Interestingly enough, he didn't feel them straining; he was vertical against the wall, his hands and feet should ache from being used to hold up all his weight, but he didn't feel a thing.

Steve couldn't help but think that under different circumstances, Tony would find the little things endlessly fascinating.

As it was, Steve just found them frustrating. He craned his head to get a look at his surroundings, but didn't get much. There was a cabinet to his right, a table on the other side of the room, a number of chairs, nothing particularly telling. He was on some kind of stone tableau backed against a wall—he was beginning to sense a medieval theme, which might mean Asgardian or some other realm's involvement, or might just be a poor choice of location—and all he could see was a blinding light.

He took stock of his person next, stretching his neck to look himself over. He was still in his running clothes, a white t-shirt and running shorts, though they'd taken the sweatshirt he'd been wearing, the blue Captain America shield one Tony had given him for Christmas. He'd been stripped of his shoes and socks, and they'd taken his only possessions, his phone and wallet.

Steve doubted they'd be able to break into his phone, since Tony had personally upgraded everyone on the team's phones so only they could access them, security measures for just this sort of situation. It was still a possibility, anything was, but even if they did, Steve didn't have the sort of confidential stuff on his phone Natasha or Clint did.

All his captors would have access to were some random photos of the team, his music library, and his texts. Steve considered his texts for a minute, but couldn't think of anything secretive or important in them. They were all to Tony, since no one else thought he could text, but they were purely conversational, nothing of value to anyone but himself.

His contacts lists contained plenty of unlisted and rather high-up numbers, but they were still just phone numbers. Not to mention, if they had the technological ability to break into a Stark-upgraded phone, they could probably get SHIELD numbers in other ways too.

His wallet wouldn't be of much value to them either. A couple credit cards, a handful of coupons, some cash…oh. Well, there was a picture tucked into one of the folds that he'd be rather upset to lose, but it wouldn't be anything valuable to his captors, so he hoped it was safe.

Then he caught sight of something in the upper right corner.

It was only about an inch in diameter, small and black and circular, and Steve probably wouldn't have even been able to see it without his enhanced vision. He casually looked away, making sure not to make eye contact with it again. With any luck, whoever was watching the video either hadn't seen his brief glance, or assumed he wouldn't know what it was.

Most people assumed he didn't have a clue about modern technology, and it was a mistake he was happy to let his captors make.

He picked up technology a lot quicker than anyone had thought he would. He got the feeling it was sort of expected that he'd be scared of technology somehow, but he'd never found it anything less than fascinating. He preferred old-fashioned methods from time to time, they could be quicker and more effective than people assumed, but technology was still of great interest to him.

He would never quite be able to keep up with Bruce and Tony when they got going, but then, most people couldn't. Tony had been a lot of help, in the beginning. After their initial rough start, Tony never underestimated him or his ability to pick things up quickly. He was the one who showed Steve how to use a cell phone, a laptop, a tablet—even how to manipulate his personal workshop interface, which was a lot more complex than anything available to the public.

So Steve knew his way around modern technology, and knew full well there was a camera in his cell. There was no way to know if it was recording, if it was a live stream, or if it was off entirely—he hadn't seen the red dot, but that didn't necessarily mean anything. Better to assume they were recording at all times, and act accordingly.

The real question was, were they just monitoring him, or did they have other plans?

As his eyes began to adjust to the light, Steve realized he had company. A man, maybe, or a very tall woman. The ski mask stayed on as they moved forward to examine him, brushing their hands almost reverently over his shoulders, his chest, his arms. They were muttering to themselves, and Steve focused on the language instead of their hands, only to hear the phrase "gescheitertes vermächtnis" and feel the beginnings of dread.

It was German, meaning something akin to "failed legacy", and generally speaking, people that considered Steve's transformation a failure tended to be Nazi's.

Then the hands were slipping lower, to his waistband, and Steve spoke up, if only to see if his captor even spoke English.

"Call me old-fashioned, but I think you're supposed to buy a fella dinner first."

"You're not here to think." Definitely a male voice. Raspy and low, with a very thick German inflection.

"Care to tell me what I'm here for then?"

"An example." The man patted Steve's cheek. "You are America's golden boy. She loves you, and the dream that you stand for. Break that dream, and her hope will drain out with your blood. I wonder, just how much  _can_ a supersoldier bleed?"

Steve stayed silent.

"I'll be back for you later, mein Bursche."The man patted Steve's face again. Mein Bursche…Steve's head was still pretty foggy, but he was pretty sure it meant "my lad", or "my boy". Something diminutive, anyway.

The man swept out of the room after that, leaving Steve alone. Steve didn't struggle in his absence. He kept silent, still observing his situation, and two more captors entered within moments.

"I hear you're ready for me?"

It was a woman this time, short and curved and sounding altogether very eager. Young, even.

"Aw, no answer?" She bounced a bit as she walked, striding alongside Steve's table, running her fingers over his arm, "It's more fun when you talk, dolly."

Steve had no intentions of making this fun for her.

"Boo, you talked for Lion!" She seemed upset by this, though it was all very put on, still likely a show. "I haven't even begun the interrogation yet, why're you clamming up? Tiger, tell him he's being unfair!"

The other captor, this…Tiger, a broad-shouldered man who kept to the corner of the room, stayed silent.

"Tiger's not much of a talker either, really. He's just here to make sure I don't eat you right up on the first day. You ought to thank him! You know what they say about people who like to kill for fun," the woman told him, running her knuckles over his cheek before slapping him soundly. Steve made no sound, no indication of pain, though her glove had a prickly metal on the back that stung something fierce, "Not to be trusted, really. And oh, I can tell, we're going to have lots of fun, you and me, lots and lots of fun. The strong, silent types are always the best when they break."

She resumed her stroking of his cheek, moving closer, cupping his face in her hands and examining him.

"Such a lovely little boy…funny, really, Hitler would've loved you. Blonde hair, blue eyes, rippling muscles…have you got a girl at home, dolly? Am I making her jealous?"

Steve didn't give her the reaction she wanted, though his mind flickered briefly to Tony before he clamped it down. Not that his captors seemed able to read minds, but they might be able to read his reactions if he wasn't careful.

"Oh, you simply must. A face like yours?" she cupped his chin in one hand this time, and he resisted the urge to shake her off. It would only be playing along with her game. "Bet she likes that soldier boy mouth of yours, doesn't she? Very demanding, I'm sure. Are you like that in the sack, lovely? All commandeering, and the like?"

Steve didn't react.

"Well, we'll find out if you're a kinky little boy soon enough." She released his face to circle in front of him, tracing her gloved hands over his shoulders and down his arms, eventually splaying her hands across his chest. "Don't you even want to know my name, dolly? You'll be screaming it later."

When he still didn't react, the woman gave a bit of a huff, abruptly stopping her stroking to stalk over to the cabinet to his far right. He couldn't see what exactly she was doing though, too far out of his field of vision.

"You know for all the fun you'll be later, you're rather dull now. It's Mantis. I know you've got that charmer on your team—the Black Window, isn't it? Delightfully deadly, that one, really lives up to the name."

She was back now, a whip in each hand. One was longer than the other, a dark rawhide handle with a thin metal wire, the other a brown leather that broke off into at least six or seven frayed cords.

"But you know what can kill a Black Widow, dolly? A Mantis can, quick as a whip." Mantis advanced forward, letting the brown leather whip crack in the air by his ear, a warning. Steve wasn't particularly well-versed in whips or how to use them, but he knew full well what someone who knew exactly what they were doing looked like, and this woman was very well-practiced with her weapon of choice. "Climb on back, sever the neck, fast and vicious and over in the blink of an eye. Think I could do the same to your Russian friend?"

Steve didn't say a word, but the look on his face apparently spoke volumes.

"Oh, you doubt me, that's adorable. You think just cause I'm an itsy bitsy girl I'm not capable of much."

That wasn't true. Steve had never been one to think less of an enemy—or an ally, for that matter—just because they were a dame. Peggy had almost shot him in the face once, Natasha pinned him in the gym more often than not, and Pepper had on more than one occasion threatened him bodily harm he had no delusions she would follow through on if he hurt Tony, so no, Steve was not particularly inclined to view women as helpless. Not to mention, Steve could easily see that this Mantis was more than capable with those whips, but he didn't bother to correct her.

"Suppose I can hardly blame you, I've done nothing but chat away, haven't I? It's about time we get started, you're quite right."

Mantis dropped the whips at his feet, reaching to her leg holster and unsheathing a long hunting knife with a mild curve. She ran it down Steve's shirt, slicing it open and leaving a trail of blood on his chest. She pushed back his shirt to leave his chest bare, taking the knife and carving out looping, swirling patterns across his chest. It stung like hell, but the knife was sharp and the pain wasn't as bad as it could've been. Steve winced a bit, but otherwise stayed as motionless as he could.

"Anything you want to tell me before we really get into it, dolly?" Mantis asked, finishing her work and re-sheathing her knife.

"Rogers, Steven G. 193-47-0275, USIN, B," Steve rattled off his dog tag information without missing a beat.

"Oh, poo. You're no fun at all." Mantis retrieved the wire whip from the floor, caressing it like one might something precious, "Anything you care to share before I begin, dolly? If you start moaning and writhing about with pleasure instead of pain, I imagine that's going to be rather embarrassing for you."

Steve's expression didn't change.

"I thought for sure that'd get a rise out of you. Nothing? Ah, well." Mantis lashed forward, the wire cutting into his skin right across the previous lacerations. Steve couldn't help the hiss of pain, and Mantis just smiled. "Now, we're starting you off nice and easy, because I've got a nice and easy question for you to answer. You tell me what I already know, I let you go back to your cell for the day. Understand?"

Steve didn't so much as blink in response.

Mantis lashed out again, two fast, smooth strokes, obviously skilled. They struck Steve square across the chest in an x, drawing fresh blood from already tender wounds. Other than a small wince, he didn't react. She gave a disappointed little noise, moving forward to trace the whip over the still-stinging markings she'd left.

"Answer me when I speak to you, dolly."

Steve didn't respond. This earned him more lashes, each more expertly placed than the last. They criss-crossed over his chest like latticework, his skin red and raw and dripping with blood in just under a few moments. Steve never said a word, just ducked his head and gritted his teeth.

"High pain tolerance, hm? I was right, you are going to be fun," Mantis purred, ceasing her whip-work long enough to sidle up to Steve, stroking a hand across his face, through his hair, "Your safe word here, dolly, is the Black Widow's name. First and last now, don't be cheap on me."

Steve remained predictably silent.

"Keep in mind, darling, I know her name. There's no betrayal here, no reason not to speak. You just need to show me you know how to work that pretty mouth of yours."

Mantis ran the knife along Steve's cheek, not enough to draw blood, just toying. Steve didn't so much as flinch. It didn't matter if she knew Natasha's name already. What mattered was that Steve knew enough about torture methods to know she was trying to lead him into it. If he talked about something unimportant now, he might be easier to convince to talk about something bigger later.

He kept his mouth shut.

"Oh, goody. I was so hoping I'd get to work for it."

Steve grit his teeth as she went to work with the wire whip, each lash drawing more blood than the last. Each strike whizzed through the air, the crack of it against his skin deafened by the pain. He quickly lost himself to it, and if he cried out after that, he didn't know.

He closed his eyes and went somewhere else.

He thought of Tony. He didn't think about their fight, because it wasn't important. They'd had hundreds of fights, and they'd have hundreds more. It was who Steve was, who Tony was, and Steve wouldn't have changed him for the world. Instead, Steve thought about the way Tony smiled when he was trying not to laugh. His lips got a little bit of a quirk at the corner, and he'd look up at Steve through too-long lashes, mischief in his eyes.

Pain burned through Steve, drawing him away from thoughts of Tony, the hard sting of metal slicing through his chest and bringing him back to reality.

"Trying to ignore me, are we?" Mantis purred.

Then she was prodding the metal end into his wounds, wiggling the tip under his skin in ways that made him writhe in anguish. Steve bit his lip until it bled, his nails digging into the stone, until he finally let go and screamed. The further under his skin the metal twisted, the louder Steve screamed. He screamed and screamed until his head hurt and his throat was raw and his vision went out; in a flash, all he could see was light.

It reminded him of Tony. He thought of the light Tony radiated when he pieced something together, the way he'd jump out of his chair a bit, too excited to sit down. If he had a free hand, he'd run it over the arc, skimming the edges and tapping the surface in a quick one-two, one-two beat. If he wasn't too lost in his work to remember Steve was around, he'd often wave impatiently at Steve to hurry over, already rattling off technobabble Steve couldn't hope to understand but enjoyed listening to.

He thought of the way Tony laughed off things like praise and gratitude, side-stepping them with a snarky remark or a self-depreciating wave of the hand. He craved them though, and Steve could see it in the childlike hopefulness for attention Tony displayed when he was too excited about his latest invention to remember to cover it up—

He was brought back to reality with a sharp snap, a ferocious pain blooming in the back of his skull. Too consumed by pain to think straight, he'd thrown his head back against the stone table and nearly cracked it—not to mention his skull—wide open. Steve could feel the blood dripping down the back of his neck, and his vision went a bit blurry.

"Ooh, that looked almost concussion worthy, dolly. Best not lose yourself too much."

Mantis didn't seem overly concerned that Steve had nearly cracked his head open, but then, she didn't seem the sympathetic type.

She didn't so much as pause in her strikes, the whip already cracking against the flesh of his chest once more. He tried to lose himself again, but before he could even begin, the wire was slicing across his cheek. Steve couldn't help himself; he let out a choked, guttural shout. The blow had thrown his head to the side, and Steve looked at the floor for the first time since the whipping had begun.

Blood pooled under him, thick and bright, too much of it to disappear down the drain beneath him all at once. Steve swallowed, thick as the blood under his feet, and gave a dry cough that sent pain spiraling through him. He hung limply, no strength to lift his head again, just watched his blood with sudden, morbid fascination, the old man's words from before ringing in his head.

Just how much  _could_ he bleed?


	2. Chapter 2

Tony almost laughed when he saw what the others had called him up to see, though it was more out of the sheer, physical relief of seeing Steve alive than anything else.

Because the image in front of him was most decidedly not funny.

An unconscious Steve was held down on a stone table of sorts, each hand pinned by a small, silver orb Tony couldn't make heads or tails of. It had to be something technological, something gravity-inducing perhaps, but Tony couldn't be bothered to care much about them at the moment. Steve himself looked worse for wear, his skin grimy, his hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, his clothes dirty and a week old, but Tony had never been more happy to see him.

The footage was live, and according to Natasha, it was currently playing on every channel of every television in America.

SHIELD was working on disengaging it from public view without cutting the video feed itself, their only link to Steve, but hadn't managed to do so yet. The footage had only started playing a moment ago—Clint had been watching one of his shows when it changed, and called them all to the room. Tony had JARVIS start recording it with his own cameras, lest the footage erase itself before they had a chance to analyze, but was now more focused on watching Steve.

It was an awkward angle, but the picture was clear, crisp, yet again suggesting that these people had good resources. Steve was stirring awake, and once he seemed conscious a figure in black moved forward and began examining him. He was muttering in a foreign language, and Tony made a hand motion for JARVIS to begin deciphering. He recognized a word or two, definitely something European, but then the man's hands went lower, and Steve spoke up.

" _Call me old-fashioned, but I think you're supposed to buy a fella dinner first."_

" _You're not here to think."_

Tony snapped his fingers at JARVIS impatiently, who thankfully was intelligent enough understand the non-verbal command and begin running different programs that would attempt to provide a voice match on their man in black. The voice was husky, with a unquestionably German accent.

"Fucking Nazi's," Clint was the first to snarl, though they were all thinking it.

Bruce waved a hand at Clint for silence.

" _Care to tell me what I'm here for then?"_

" _An example."_ The man turned to look at the camera as he patted Steve's cheek, his words for his audience, not for Steve.  _"You are America's golden boy. She loves you, and the dream that you stand for. Break that dream, and her hope will drain out with your blood."_

It was only then that Tony noticed the gutter vent on the ground under the table Steve was on. Tony was gripped with an intense need to turn away, and the deep inability to do so.

" _I wonder, just how much_ can  _a supersoldier bleed?"_

Tony seethed, the inability to  _do_ anything only making him angrier. He pulled out his phone, opening text communication with JARVIS—he didn't want the AI to speak and drown out anything Steve or their bad guy might say.

_**What do we got?** _

_**German accent, of the Low Saxon dialect. Somewhat uncommon, generally reserved for the elderly of Northern Germany. Usually considered to be "pure" German by those who speak it.** _

_**Any hits we can get an ID off?** _

_**Still processing.** _

" _I'll be back for you later, mein Bursche."_

JARVIS relayed a translation.

" _ **My boy", a diminutive term, used less to imply affection and more assert condescension.**_

" _I hear you're ready for me?"_

It was a woman this time. She seemed young and somewhat childlike, possibly even a teenager, and Tony hated her almost immediately. He despised everyone involved in this sick little game of course, but as the video went on, as she toyed with Steve, stroking his cheek in the same breath as she slapped it, Tony found there was a special kind of hate he had reserved for her.

_**62% vocal match for Reiner Himmler, professor of History at Bucknell University.** _

_**Keep searching, but give me all you got on Himmler.** _

" _Have you got a girl at home, dolly? Am I making her jealous?"  
_

No, but she was pissing him the fuck off, and it was not a good plan on her part.

Steve naturally gave no particular reaction, just as he'd been doing, but Tony just gripped his phone tighter as the psycho started rifling through a cabinet, pulling out a pair of whips.

Tony had been through his experimental stages—he was game for a lot, and he'd been into some low-end BDSM for a little while before the novelty wore off. He'd never experimented with either of the whips the woman was wielding now, but he could tell they were designed to be a hell of a lot more painful than anything he'd tried.

He recognized one, and almost cracked his phone screen.

Cat o' nine tails. It was braided leather, and it split off into nine separate strands. Not particularly effective if you didn't know how to use it, but when you did, it was blisteringly, mind-numbingly painful. Nine strikes at once, like a cat's claws ripping across your skin.

Tony didn't want to watch, but he couldn't look away.

She didn't use either of them just yet, still prancing around Steve and chatting away. She started going on about Natasha then—something about how her name was Mantis, and mantis' could kill widows in nature, implying she could do the same. Steve didn't say anything, but the disagreement was clear on his face.

Mantis was babbling now about how Steve was underestimating her—which Tony doubted highly—cracking the wire whip by his ear in warning. Then, in one too-smooth motion that suggested a terrifying amount of practice, the psychopath was drawing a knife and slicing away at his chest, and god, Steve didn't even flinch.

Something in Tony ached at that.

She told Steve the Black Widow's name was his safe word. Steve didn't so much as blink; it was Natasha who grit her teeth.

Then there was nothing but the crack of the whip and the splatter of Steve's blood and Tony had to look away. It was too much, it was too god damn much. Tony could see the hard lines of determination written in every clench of Steve's jaw, every tensing of his shoulders, every time he just blinked back at Mantis with steely-eyed resolve.

_Fuck._

Tony looked at his phone instead, scanning JARVIS' updates about Himmler, trying and failing to ignore the way his hands jumped at every crack of the whip, at every gleeful laugh that would haunt him long beyond his deathbed.

_**Reiner Himmler, aged 63. Male of German descent, an Associate Professor at Bucknell University.** _

_**Now an 84% vocal match.** _

_**Teaches HST 201: Introduction to Historical GIS, HST 236: 19** _ _**th** _ _**Century Europe, and HST 245: Topics in German History.** _

_**Has a doctorate in History from the Freie Universität Berlin – Free University of Berlin.** _

_**No found presence on social networking sites.** _

_**Currently on a one year leave of absence.** _

Tony narrowed his eyes at his phone, typing a reply.

_**Suspicious. Send results to SHIELD. Any results for our second psychopath's voice?** _

_**Still processing.** _

_**Keep working, see if you can find anything else abo** _

Steve's first scream rattled Tony so badly he dropped his phone.

He didn't pick it back up. He stared at the screen in shock and horror, unable to so much as breathe. Mantis was digging the wire of the whip  _under Steve's skin—_

Tony looked away again, unable to watch Steve writhe any longer, but he couldn't bring himself to leave, not when Steve was screaming like that. He was in horrific pain and Tony couldn't fucking do anything but sit there, listening helplessly, punishing himself in a worse way than he could've imagined on his own. Steve's screams stripped Tony to his very core, something about that horrible, tortured sound, so raw and guttural and  _wrong._

Tony was rich and powerful and a genius and there was absolutely nothing he could do.

Someone touched his hand, and Tony choked back a strangled sounding noise. Natasha didn't let go of his hand, just squeezed, and it wasn't until she squeezed his hand that he realized how badly his hands were shaking.

Steve had stopped screaming, and it seemed too silent without the sound. Tony glanced up, then glanced away just as quickly; Steve's eyes were eerily empty. Mantis wasn't done by any measure, and Tony turned away again. He picked his phone up, then turned to look at the others at last; to be honest, until Natasha had touched his hand, he'd forgotten they existed.

Bruce was gone—Tony wasn't sure when he'd left, but it was for the best. He was too likely to become enraged, which would be the last thing they needed just then. Clint and Natasha were on the couch, watching impassively; each had surely seen, and likely been through, worse. Thor continued to watch, though he seemed simultaneously stunned and furious, while Tony had long taken to leaning against the couch, now clutching Natasha's hand for support.

He didn't know how much longer he could watch this, but he didn't know how to stop, either.

" _He's gonna pass ou—"_

Tony's head snapped up. It was a new voice, male. The figure guarding the door made a motion to step forward, almost as if to stop Mantis.

The screen went black.

Tony hurled his phone through the wall.

* * *

Steve gasped for air, choking on it as Mantis lashed him again. He didn't know how long she'd been at it. Time was meaningless, a concept lost in the haze of pain. Just as Steve managed to lose himself in his mind again, she switched whips.

He hadn't thought he could hurt any more than he did; he'd been wrong.

The nine frayed ends lashed across his chest, each strike slicing nine parallel lines through his skin. Steve's vision was beginning to go dark, and Mantis seemed pleased by this. She raised her hand to strike again, and Steve just hung his head, accepting and waiting for it. He closed his eyes, tried to think of Tony, tried to drift away again.

"He's gonna pass out."

The voice was gruff, male. Steve was still dazed, and it took him a long moment to remember there had been someone else in the room with them. He opened his eyes, and though his vision swam, he could see the man had stopped Mantis from hitting him again, though for what reason, Steve couldn't comprehend.

"Don't second-guess me," Mantis' voice was icy sharp, with a sneering growl Steve hadn't previously heard from her.

There was a hand on his chest now, a ghosting sensation, then mind-numbing pain as sharp nails sunk in, digging into his skin and clawing out new marks. The accompanying shout of agony felt almost ripped from his chest, and when he opened his eyes, Mantis was licking his blood off her fingers.

"So rich, so strong…he's so powerful, you can taste it in his blood," Mantis told her partner, still more than a hint of disdain palpable at being challenged, "He's far from unconscious, Tiger. Don't tell me how to do my job."

Tiger pulled her aside to have a more hushed, private conversation, but Steve's supersoldier hearing was not to be underestimated.

"He's bleedin' real bad, Mantis. If he dies 'fore we get the info, Lion'll be  _furious."_

"Don't be such a controlling little prick," Mantis sneered, "Didn't Lion tell you anything about me? I know exactly how far is too far. Besides, you idiot, he's got a healing factor, remember?"

"Look, Chameleon found somethin' he wants to question him about anyway—"

"Well, Cham can wait his turn," Mantis snapped impatiently, "No way he's ready to talk, you've got to let me work—"

"Chameleon wants him while he's still sane," Tiger insisted, "He finally fixed the bug, he's all worked up an' shit about it. Just let Chameleon have his go, that serum of Rogers' will heal him up while Chameleon grinds him down, then you can get right back at it an' he might even break for you."

Steve was rapidly returning to lucidity, the aforementioned serum already working to heal the worst of his injuries and slow the bleeding. Though the pain was still ghastly, Mantis was right—he was far from unconscious, though he might wish otherwise.

"That's not—"

"It's fair," Tiger cut her off. He turned away from her to give Steve a long, suspicious look. Steve made a point not to turn away, not to show any sign of hearing them, "Y'think he can hear us?"

"Don't be daft. Didn't you read Stark's reports? His senses didn't improve, just his strength and healing."

It took every ounce of willpower Steve had left not to grin in relief. Tony. Perfect, brilliant Tony. Steve knew the reports they were talking about—how they'd gotten them, he hadn't a clue, but he remembered Tony telling him about doctoring the SHIELD reports on his abilities. A safety precaution, he'd said.

God, that man.

"He's lookin' right at us," Tiger grunted, "Ain't got no expression, either. It's fuckin' creepy."

"Well, what else is he going to look at?" Mantis just snorted away his concern. "And he has an  _expression,_ you just can't read it. He's thinking about something important, you can see it in his eyes…fine, whatever. Let Cham have a go, what do I care? He wasn't talking anytime soon anyway."

Tiger held open the door for them both to leave. Mantis advanced on Steve instead, running one blood-covered hand through his hair, pushing it back from his forehead. The gesture was uncomfortably intimate, but Steve forced himself not to react, not to give her anything. She bent forward, and for one startling moment, he thought she was going to kiss him.

Instead, she kissed his cheek, her lips moving down his neck and to his bloody, lacerated chest. She lapped at the blood, the bump of her teeth and pressure of her tongue making him writhe in pain. He bit his lip to contain a shout, and she only seemed amused by this.

"Come on, Mantis, you've had your fun," Tiger sighed.

Mantis pulled away, the front of her mask coated thick with his blood, and she licked her bloodied lips with a victorious smile.

"I'll be back for you, dolly." Mantis winked at him. "You taste lovely."

Then they were both out the door, leaving him alone. Steve didn't know how long he hung there. Hours, at least, if the healing of his chest was anything to go by. By the time his next captor entered, his chest wounds were visible, but closed and scar-white.

"Interesting."

The man, presumably "Chameleon", was young—younger than Mantis, possibly even a teenager.

"She hasn't tried to…" Chameleon made a biting motion, clacking his teeth, "Y'know. Eat you. Has she?"

Steve raised an eyebrow.

"She's fantastic at what she does, but…" Chameleon made a face, "Messy, sometimes. We'll try not to leave you alone with her, or there won't be much of you left to interrogate."

Well, that explained the fascination with his blood. Great.

"Me, on the other hand," Chameleon grabbed one of the chairs and pulled it up in front of Steve, sitting in it backwards, "I'm more of a cards on the table guy, myself. Call me Monkey. Any chance you and I could talk, mano a mano?"

Monkey, huh? What happened to the Chameleon guy?

"Rogers, Steven G. 193-47-0275, USIN, B."

"Oh come on, I'm not asking you for any confidential information. No need to go all Captain Commanding on me."

Something about the phrasing struck Steve as odd. Maybe it was the "Captain Commanding"; Tony was always calling him Captain Something or another. He disliked the similarity, but answered anyway.

"What're you asking, then?" Steve decided to play along a bit. If it bought him time away from that Mantis freak to heal and recuperate, well, it sure as hell couldn't hurt worse than that.

"That's the spirit!" Monkey grinned widely, "Y'know, I'd clap you on the shoulder, but I don't think that'd feel too good."

"Probably not."

Steve could already see where this was going. The man was playing a different kind of game, but a game none the less. He was the easy-going one, the friendly one, the good cop to Mantis' psycho cop. It wouldn't work, but it made for a nice enough break.

He was starting to sense a theme with their names, now that he wasn't in such blinding pain. Mantis, like a preying mantis, seemed precise and vicious. Also, apparently cannibalistic, because that was Steve's life these days. They'd referred to a Lion earlier, who seemed like he might be a leader, which made sense, "King of the Jungle" and all. Tiger seemed the muscled enforcer type, and Steve could put two and two together easily enough. Monkey—liked to play games, maybe?

"Mantis wasn't too hard on you, was she? She can be a little…" Monkey made a swirly motion next to his head, a look of rather convincing mock concern in his eyes.

"Wasn't exactly the walk in the park I was hoping for this morning," Steve snorted, the little joke more to himself than to Monkey.

Monkey just laughed, looking at Steve with a slowly widening grin on his face.

"You know, you're actually pretty funny. Who knew you were hiding a sense of humor under all that patriotism?"

Steve frowned. Something about that was wrong. He couldn't put a finger on it, couldn't quite understand…but it felt familiar and strange all at once, and he didn't like it.

"What's with the look? You doing alright? Here, have some water, you're probably dehydrated by now."

Monkey wheeled his chair back over to the table in the corner. Most of it was blocked from Steve's vision, but he returned with a glass of water and he held it to Steve's lips. Steve kept his mouth closed; it could be poisoned, drugged, any number of things.

"Oh, come on, it's just water. Look, if we wanted you drugged, we'd slip a needle in your neck. You're not exactly in a position to fight it, right? So just accept the water already before you hurt my feelings, would you?"

The same sense of  _wrong_ hit Steve again, and he narrowed his eyes at Monkey, trying to make sense of it. Steve trusted his gut, and his gut was telling him there was something weird going on here, weirder than just the faux-friendship routine…but Steve had to admit, if they wanted him drugged, they had easier ways. He opened his mouth and accepted the water.

"There you go. And you should know, your walk in the park? That wasn't this morning, that was a week ago."

"Those're some drugs you've got." Steve kept a calm exterior, but his mind was reeling. A  _week?_ He couldn't remember much, just a blurry haze, and it hurt his head to even try.

"Yeah, we've got a chemical genius in our midst. He'd probably even rival your big green friend Dr. Banner. Y'know Spangl—"

Steve cut him off with a firm shake of his head and a darkly narrow-eyed look.

"Son, don't."

If he had to put up with this attempt at playing buddy-buddy with him, he sure as hell wasn't going to listen to some teenage psychopath call him Tony's nicknames, too.

"Alright, alright. I dunno, I thought we were kinda getting alon—"

Monkey was cut off by the door bursting open. Two of the captors were hauling another captive in, this one bloody and beaten even worse than Steve. The man was shaking, barely holding himself together. He just barely managed to raise his head and meet eyes with Steve. Steve's heart stopped.

Tony?

His pupils were blown wide with drugs, but they were the same color, if vacant and helpless. Same hair, same facial structure, same body type, if more dirty and malnourished looking that Steve had last seen him. There was sweat and blood streaked across his face, but God Almighty, it  _was_  him.

Steve shot forward, struggling fiercely against his bonds for the first time since he'd tested them hours ago. He arched his body off the table, giving every ounce of strength he had left to break free. Every part of him yearned to escape, to beat the men who'd done this into the ground, to pull Tony into his arms, to apologize—

The orbs holding him down didn't so much as budge.

Even as his lungs felt crushed and his stomach turned, there was an icy fury he'd never felt before blossoming in his veins.

"You're going to regret that."

His voice was low, darker than he'd could ever recall hearing himself, but he didn't care. He knew, with every fiber of his being, that he was not going to die until they'd paid for what they'd done. Until he made them, until he did to them what they'd done to Tony.

"Steve?"

His name was a cracked, broken murmur on Tony's bloodied lips, just enough hope in the word to break what was left of Steve's heart.

"Tony," Steve whispered, a soft exhale, then, louder, a stream of wrecked babbling he couldn't have stopped if he'd wanted to, "Tony, God, Tony, I'm so sorry, I'll get us out of this, I promise, I swear to you—"

Then they were hauling him out again, the guards apologizing, something about the wrong room, Monkey shouting at their backs about useless, good-for-nothing, idiot sons of bitches fucking everything up, but Steve didn't hear either of them.

Even once the guards and Tony had left, anything further Monkey had to say to him just washed over Steve like a wave.

They had Tony.

What else mattered?

* * *

The blackout was going on two hours now, and Tony was a wreck.

To be fair, so were Bruce and Thor. Clint and Natasha weren't pleased, obviously, but they'd been tortured themselves, and were more accustomed to the darker sides of human nature than the others.

SHIELD wasn't responsible for the loss of footage, though after about ten minutes into it, they had managed to divert broadcasting. Only Avengers Tower received communication now, and the public had only gotten to where Mantis had been verbally taunting Steve—nothing graphic, thank god, lest they have a national panic to deal with as well.

After the kidnappers went blackout on them, the Avengers split up. Thor returned to Asgard to seek his father's assistance in pinpointing a location, something about Odin being all-seeing. Tony didn't protest; hell, he'd get on his knees and beg for _Loki's_ assistance if that's what it took.

He'd do it in a second if it meant never hearing Steve scream like that again.

While Thor was off in Asgard, Bruce was working at SHIELD headquarters in any capacity he could aside from analyzing the video; the Hulk was not who they needed right now. Natasha was with the video analysts, helping look for hints about Mantis' identity or origin in her torture style, while Clint was assigned to one of the teams tracking down Himmler. Tony hadn't moved from the couch—someone needed to wait around for the kidnappers to start broadcasting again, and Tony couldn't bring himself not to wait for Steve to reappear, to still be alive.

He occupied himself by digging up more information on Himmler to feed to the field teams.

Himmler's listed place of residence turned out to be abandoned, his car in it's designated parking spot, neither used in at least six months. Tony managed to track down one living relative, an aunt, but when Clint's team got out there, it turned out she only spoke German. After waiting half an hour for a translator, all they ended up getting out of her was that she hadn't spoken to Himmler in years, if not decades. SHIELD issued warrants for him in every state, and were busy circulating his image virally, but none of it seemed to be doing much good.

Then the screen was crackling back to life.

" _Interesting."_

A teenage kid was in the room with Steve now. Steve looked better, somewhat, his chest already healed into a mess of thick, tangled scars. Tony immediately whipped out his phone—StarkPhones were very resilient, and it was banged up but still functional—and opened a group message with Natasha, Clint, and Bruce.

_**Video's back –Tony** _

_**En route. Situation? –Natasha** _

_**Some teenager's got him. He's asking if Mantis tried to eat him. Apparently that happens sometimes –Tony** _

_**Jesus, did she? –Bruce** _

_**gr8 now theyre fuckin cannibals 2 y am i not srprised –Clint** _

_**I don't think she bit him or anything, at least not that that I can see –Tony** _

_**Guy's saying he's called Monkey –Tony** _

_**He's trying to be friendly, Steve's playing along but totally not buying –Tony** _

_**Talking? –Natasha** _

_**Not much. Idle convo. Likely so he doesn't get stuck back with the cannibal –Tony** _

_**He accepted water, might be drugged, don't know yet –Tony** _

_**if i went thru wat he just did id wanna be drugged 2 –Clint** _

_**Clint. –Natasha** _

_**Srry –Clint** _

Then Tony dropped his phone for the second time that day, because  _holy fuck._

He didn't blame Steve for thinking the guy was him; if Tony hadn't  _been_ Tony he'd have thought it was him. Tony dragged his eyes away from his twin to look at Steve, and something in him broke.

Steve looked horrified.

Steve was frozen completely, his face the picture of devastation. Then, in a flash, Steve shot forward, tearing at the orbs holding him down, looking like he might try and break his bones to do it. He arched off the table, struggling with everything he had.

For a brief moment, Tony hoped.

Then Steve collapsed, unsuccessful and completely spent, the force of his back hitting the table an audible rumble. When Steve looked up again, there was an icy hatred in his eyes Tony hadn't thought him capable of.

" _You're going to regret that."_

His voice was thin and dangerous as he glared down his captors.

" _Steve?"_

For a moment, Tony thought he'd spoken aloud; fuck if that didn't sound exactly like his own voice.

" _Tony,"_  Steve gave a soft exhale, then, louder, pleading,  _"Tony, God, Tony, I'm so sorry, I'll get us out of this, I promise, I swear to you—"_

Tony couldn't do anything but stare. What the  _fuck_ was Steve apologizing for? He should be furious at Tony, should hate him for getting him into this situation, but Steve just continued begging forgiveness and making promises until the fake Tony was hauled away again.

Steve deflated once the fake Tony was gone, dropped his head and just…hung there. Anything Monkey tried to say or do went completely ignored. Steve wasn't even listening anymore. The action over, Tony retrieved his phone from the floor and began texting the group again.

_**Holy fuck –Tony** _

_**They have me –Tony** _

_**A fake me, I mean –Tony** _

_**wtf? –Clint** _

_**Swear to god, the guy's my fucking doppleganger –Tony** _

_**srsly? –Clint** _

_**If Steve bought it, the guy has to be as close to a perfect match as they come. –Bruce** _

_**How close did Steve get to him? –Natasha** _

_**Ten, maybe fifteen feet? –Tony** _

_**and they still duped him? no fuckin way –Clint** _

_**He's not exactly in his right mind. –Natasha** _

_**To be fair the only thing twin-me said was 'Steve', which is pretty much what I'd say, so there wasn't a whole lot of time for Steve to notice something was wrong or different –Tony** _

_**steve notices when you breathe wrong dude –Clint** _

_**they totally drugged his water –Clint** _

_**Not helpful, Clint. Tony, you're texting in past tense. Did they black out again? –Bruce** _

_**No, but Steve's not responding anymore. After they hauled twin-me away, he just…zoned out –Tony** _

_**You guys coming or what? –Tony** _

_**2 minutes away. –Natasha** _

_**elevator –Clint** _

_**Stuck in a cubicle at SHIELD. –Bruce** _

_**dude i am legit terrified for ur cubicle-mates –Clint** _

"Hey," Clint called, snapping his phone shut as he stepped into the hall, "Catch me up?"

"JARVIS, show Clint the footage he missed," Tony ordered, passing Clint his StarkPad without taking his eyes off the live footage.

Steve was still unresponsive. His eyes were glassy, his mind completely elsewhere. JARVIS loaded the parts Clint had missed to Tony's StarkPad, and Clint plugged in the headphones and settled to watch it on the couch next to Tony. He whistled long and low when twin-Tony came on the StarkPad screen. Tony caught Clint looking between him and the image, comparing. He didn't seem to come up with anything.

"Think they mastered cloning, or what?" Clint said at last, "Cause damn, Tony. If you weren't sitting right next to me…"

"There could be magic involved," Natasha suggested from right behind them, having entered silently at some point. Tony startled, Clint just scooted closer to Tony to make room for her on his other side. She joined them on the couch with a sigh. "Too many things involve magic these days to rule it out."

"She's right," Tony agreed, "Hell, these days, that's actually  _more_  likely than them perfecting human cloning. Not to mention finding a way to speed up the aging of the clone without unraveling his genetic sequencing."

"Great," Clint huffed, passing Natasha the StarkPad so she could catch up, "Magic. Whoo."

Natasha watched it in silence, while Clint and Tony continued watching Monkey try his best to get something out of a practically catatonic Steve. Her face was a perfect mask, but when she finally finished and passed the StarkPad back, she made a nodding motion at the live footage.

"Anything?"

"Not a word." Tony ran a hand through his hair in frustration, the inability to  _do_ anything almost physically painful. "Hasn't even reacted. Monkey's been trying to play the apologetic, friendly ally card, but Steve going all catatonic is kind of making him lose his patience."

"Well, whoever's pretending to be you, it's not makeup, or a mask. It's not faked in any way I can see or that I know of. Whoever they are, their injuries, at least, are legitimate." Natasha gave a twitch of a frown. "Which means they've got another victim in there. The beatings were probably to convince him to pretend to be you."

"Fantastic. Steve's  _and_ an innocent civilian's blood on my hands," Tony scowled, the monumental stress of the whole situation making him even more self-depreciating than usual, "Nothing new there."

"Shut up." Clint smacked him in the shoulder, hard. "I don't want to hear that bullshit."

"It's not bullshit, Barton—"

"Oh, yeah, Steve's totally pissed and blaming you, can't you tell?" Clint rolled his eyes, mocking Tony. "That guy hates you  _so_ much."

"Just because he doesn't blame me doesn't mean it's not my fault—"

"God damn it, Stark!" Clint snapped, shooting up off the couch.

They'd all been running themselves ragged for the week, working with minimal sleep and little food, living under the pressure of knowing one of their own had been taken and they were unable to do anything. It had been inevitable one of them would snap, but it didn't lessen Tony's surprise that it was Clint who did.

"You think Steve gives a shit?" Clint shouted at the top of his lungs. "He doesn't blame you, we don't blame you,  _nobody fucking blames you!_ You are the only fucking person who for a second thinks this is your fault! You're disgustingly in love with each other, this is literally the last possible thing you would want for him and everybody with eyes fucking knows it! Okay? So would you shut the fuck up with all the 'this is my fault' bullshit already? Jesus fucking Christ!"

Then Clint was gone, stalking out of the room with a hand motion to JARVIS, something about watching the footage in his suite, away from the pity party.

Tony and Natasha sat in silence for a long minute.

"If he knows, you know."

"Everyone knows."

More silence. Onscreen, Monkey slammed a hand down on the table. Steve didn't flinch.

"Does Steve know?"

"No."

"So not the person that matters."

"No."

"You're supposed to reassure me."

"If you'd told him when you had the chance, I wouldn't have to."

"You  _do_ blame me—"

"I don't," Natasha cut him off crisply, "You wish I did, because you do, but I don't. You're so quick to look for blame, but the only blame here lies on their shoulders."

This time they're silent for longer. Monkey gives up on Steve, switching off with Mantis. This time Tony doesn't look away. It's just as gruesome as before, and Steve still winces and shouts and eventually screams, but the light doesn't come back to his eyes.

"What if he never knows?"

Tony's voice is barely more than a whisper, and the thought terrifies him more than anything he's ever known. The idea that Steve might die without knowing, that he might die thinking Tony just wanted him out of his face…

"He's not going to die."

"You can't promise that."

"Try and stop me."

" _Why?"_

Their argument was immediately abandoned, their heads snapping to the screen. It was the first thing Steve had said since the fake Tony had been hauled away, the first thing he'd said that wasn't his dog tag information to Mantis at all.

" _He_ does  _talk!"_ Mantis crowed happily,  _"It's such a delight to hear your lovely voice at last, dolly. But you're going to have to be a bit more specific than that if you'd like an answer."_

The freak was inching closer to Steve, brushing back his blood-matted hair to make him look her in the eyes.

" _Why him?"_ Steve seemed to have pulled himself out of his state almost completely, and he spoke with a growl,  _"You had me. Why take him?"_

" _Why, Captain…"_ Mantis purred, running her nails across his chest. Steve winced, but wasn't to be distracted.  _"Ask yourself. How better to break a man than to break his heart?"_

Something tragic flickered across Steve's expression, but it was only there a moment. Just a flash and it was gone, replaced by the carefully guarded look of before.

 _"And my_ _heart's in my team. Clever of you."_

" _Good try, really."_ Mantis stepped back, tapping the wire whip over his heart.  _"It'd be a bit more convincing if you and I didn't both know better."_

She lashed him once, before stalking somewhere in the room off-camera, returning to wave a brown leather wallet at Steve gleefully.

" _Tells you so much if you know what to look for. You haven't got much in here, dear, but then, that tells me just as much. The 1940's boy scout is all about efficiency, isn't he? Got to keep those unnecessary possessions minimal, because a soldier's always got to be ready to move on…"_ Mantis flipped open his wallet, pulling out a worn photograph to wave in Steve's face.  _"But then, everyone has their weakness, don't they?"_

Steve's jaw went tight and he didn't say a word, but he didn't have to.

Tony knew that picture.

Or half a picture, he should say. It was from months and months ago, the day Steve had come back from his tour of America. They hadn't been friends then, just acquaintances who'd happened to save the world once, but Tony had felt guilty about their fight and offered to take Steve to a proper 21st century New York lunch to make up for it.

The afternoon had started off somewhat awkwardly, since neither of them were quite willing to acknowledge the elephant in the room. Tony had talked too much to try and fill Steve's introspective silence, and it was all going rather awfully until in the middle of some rant of Tony's about how mind-numbingly awful reality shows were, Steve had blurted out guiltily that he couldn't stop watching daytime soaps.

There had been a long moment of silence, then they'd both burst out laughing. They disagreed on the entertainment value of daytime tv, but things loosened between them after that. By the end of the lunch Tony was already talking about where he'd drag Steve next time, and when Steve admitted he didn't have anything else to do for the day, Tony made a show of clicking 'delete' on his phone and announcing that now he didn't either.

They'd gone a lot of places, ended up spending hours together, and finally found themselves at some cheesy, two-bit carnival in the middle of Central Park. After Tony tried his hand at the games—Steve refused, it wasn't fair, though Tony pointed out most carnies didn't play particularly fair themselves—and won some uselessly huge teddy bear, Steve caught sight of a cheap photo booth. Tony thought it looked dingy and like it might give him tetanus, but Steve had been ecstatic to find something he recognized.

Steve dragged Tony and the obnoxiously large bear into the photo booth, clicking away at the buttons before Tony was even entirely inside. The first picture was just a jumble of movement—Steve had turned away from the camera to try and help Tony squeeze in, Tony's body was a blur as he half-stumbled half-fell into the booth, and the bear's puffy arm blocked Tony's eyes but not his grumpy scowl. The second picture wasn't much better, though this time Steve was laughing at Tony, who looked particularly traumatized by the way the bear's crotch was in his face.

In the third picture, Steve's back was almost all the way to the camera, because he'd had to get up and grab Tony by the arm to haul him back inside after Tony tried to escape; all that could be seen of Tony was Steve's hand on his arm. The fourth picture had Steve with an arm around Tony's neck, and Tony squished into Steve's chest. He was looking up at Steve with flustered bemusement, and Steve was just grinning back at him fondly.

Four pictures, and not one shot of them looking at the camera.

Tony had insisted on taking the first two—Steve's smile was the brightest in them, though he'd claimed he just wanted proof for the police that he'd been bear-raped in a photo booth and it was all Captain America's fault. Steve happily agreed on the split. Steve had said once—and yes, Tony had saved the text—that it was the best day he'd had since he'd been unfrozen, and it was certainly one of the best days Tony himself had had in...longer than he cared to remember.

They'd taken many more pictures and had many more fantastic days out since, no question, but there was something special about that first day. It was the first time they'd connected as friends instead of teammates, as people instead of Avengers. Those first pictures were the landmark of their entire friendship; Tony had kept his half locked in his desk drawer along with the picture of him with his parents on the one Christmas they'd ever been home for, a clipping of the first article to praise Iron Man as a hero, and the 'Proof That Tony Stark Has a Heart' arc reactor.

He'd had no idea Steve had kept his.

" _How laughably cliché of you, dolly—sentimental, too. Wouldn't have pinned you as the type."_ Mantis was smirking now, waving the picture under his nose smugly.  _"But then, I wouldn't have pinned this slutty little thing as your type either, so—"_

" _Don't talk about him like that,"_ Steve snarled before he could stop himself.

" _Touchy touchy."_ Mantis tapped the picture to his nose.  _"Now possessive, that I'd have guessed."_

Steve didn't reply. Tony was captivated, equal turns amazed and incredulous. Mantis was right, Steve had never been particularly sentimental, at least not about things. Tony had seen his bedroom; the only difference between now and before he'd moved in was that there were clothes in the drawers and books on the shelves. Tony had never gone digging through his things or anything, but it didn't seem to him like Steve kept much. Memories and people mattered more than possessions, he'd always said.

But then he'd gone and kept some stupid photo booth picture from what, months ago, a year? God, almost a year and a half, if Tony thought about it, though it felt like decades. And for what? To be misinterpreted and used against him?

" _I wonder how it feels…"_ Mantis murmured, trailing a hand over his chest,  _"To know that we have him. To know he's felt the crack of my whip, the edge of my blade…"_

Though Steve stayed silent, the muscle in his jaw went tight, and his usually bright eyes were grim and foreboding.

" _But he doesn't have a healing serum like you, does he? He keeps his bruises, his broken bones, his scars…how does it feel to know that for the rest of his life, I'll be a part of hi—"_

Steve shot forward, hard enough to shake the table. Mantis faltered—likely more out of surprise than fear, though it was still something—and Steve spat at her feet.

" _You? You are_ nothing _. You're no more a part of him than Stane, or Vanko, or Loki; just another deranged psychopath for him to defeat. He's stronger than you. We both are. But bringing him here, torturing him? That's a mistake I'll make you regret if it's the last thing I do."_

Jesus Christ. Tony swallowed, hard.

" _Big words, dolly,"_ Mantis murmured at last,  _"Very big words. But your ferocity betrays you, you know. You're a strong, strapping supersoldier. You grit your teeth and bare it, maybe give me a lovely scream if I push hard enough. But precious little Tony…well. Tony's just human, isn't he? He screams within moments, dolly. He's a screamer, your boy, and it's such a beautiful sound. A man like that, a man of power and fame and wealth, a man who always gets his way, to see a man like that writhe and scream and beg for mercy?"_

Tony could feel his hands shaking again. It wasn't fear that had him rattled, but anger. It ran deep and cold and intoxicating, and he wasn't sure he'd be able to contain it if he tried, because before the words even left that sick little girl's mouth, he knew exactly what she was going to say, exactly what they were going to put Steve through.

" _Well. You ought to see it for yourself, hm?"_


	3. Chapter 3

The last thing Steve heard before he blacked out was Mantis.

"Well. You ought to see it for yourself, hm?"

He didn't have time to react to her words, or what they meant, because before he could even blink she was twirling two needles with a smug little smile, expertly jamming each into the side of his neck.

When he woke up, he was stuck in a stone cell, shackled to the wall by his ankle. It was all very medieval dungeon-esque, no windows or signs of natural light. He thought the one chain might've been a miscalculation of his strength, but it turned out to be reinforced with something he couldn't seem to break through. He tested it, tugging, twisting, and trying to pry apart the cuff, but to no avail. He tried to pry it from the wall next, hoping to have better luck, but it was reinforced there too. In spite of himself, Steve was almost intrigued—Tony had been doing experiments lately, testing the limits of his superstrength, but even he had only managed to restrain Steve for minimal lengths of time and with a healthy amount of drugs.

Steve closed his eyes tightly at that; he couldn't think about Tony right now. He couldn't afford it. Just thinking his name did nothing but _hurthurthurt_ and he needed to think clearly, if only for a moment. He'd have all night to wallow in his misery if he was truly stuck here, but first he needed to test every escape option possible.

He tested the length of his restraint, managing to crawl to most corners of his cell. The only thing out of his reach was the bars, which probably meant they weren't reinforced. That was one good thing at least. If he could break the restraint or unlock it somehow, he could probably pry the bars open easily enough. The drugs seemed to be wearing off, though there was no telling if they'd dose him again or not. Most notably, there was straw for sleeping and buckets for water and waste; this meant they had intentions to keep him around a while.

Steve wasn't sure if that was good or bad, at this point.

He pushed his bleaker thoughts aside, examining his chest to get an idea of how long he'd been unconscious. It was mostly healed now, the scars looking weeks if not months old, thick and white and tangled. That put his best guess at six, maybe seven hours since they'd drugged him. Though the drugs seemed to have worn off by now, he found he was still exhausted. He curled into the hay as best he could, trying to get settled, but quite manage it. He ended up lying flat on his back, staring at the rocky ceiling and trying not to think about Tony.

He failed, of course.

He wondered where they were keeping him. Wondered if it would be worth it to call his name, see if he answered. Wondered what he'd say if he did. The images of Tony bruised and beaten and pleading his name came to Steve's mind unbidden, and he knew that sleep, if it came at all, was a long time off.

When he finally did fall asleep, hours later, he was woken what felt like immediately by a rippling electric shock jabbed into his side. Steve shot forward, nearly spraining his ankle as he jerked away from the source of pain. He was alert in an instant, assessing the masked captor on the other side of the bars. Tiger, maybe? It was dark, the area lit only by candlelight, and he couldn't tell for sure. They were wielding a modified cattle prod with an extended reach, and they zapped him with it twice more before disappearing off down the hall. When they were finally gone, Steve leaned against the wall for support, clasping his aching side with a grimace and trying to slow his startled, panicked breathing.

They weren't going to let him sleep, it seemed. It was a good enough tactic—sleep deprivation was well known for it's horrific effects on the human psyche—but Steve was not normal. He could last weeks with only an hour or two's sleep, if he had to. Though he had to admit, he didn't love the idea of staying up with only his miserable thoughts to keep him company.

The hours slipped by, excruciatingly slow.

It was impossible to keep track of time, and the longer he was left alone, the worse his imagination got. Mantis had said he was going to see them torture Tony; Steve wasn't sure he could handle that. He couldn't even imagine it without wanting to punch something until his fists bled, run until he couldn't breathe. He considered banging his head against the wall hard enough to knock himself unconscious more than once when the images of Tony, tortured and terrfied, wouldn't leave him be.

Steve was by no means a bloodthirsty or vengeful man, but he wanted, more than anything he'd ever known, to kill whoever had done this to Tony. As much of a paragon of virtue Captain America was supposed to be, Steve Rogers was just a man, and men did desperate things for the people they loved. Steve knew that if they made him watch Tony be tortured, that he would kill them at the first chance available to him. More than that, he knew he wouldn't regret it.

The thought should've scared him, should've made him feel ill at ease, but it didn't. It made him feel some small sense of control, and Steve clung to that.

Hours passed, then days. Steve tried to judge time by the healing of his wounds, but after another twelve or so hours, the serum finished it's work and the scars were gone. He tried judging by hunger after that, since they didn't seem keen on feeding him, but after the second, or possibly third day, his body adapted. Steve's metabolism was a funny thing. When he had food available to him, he could eat for hours and not be stuffed; when deprived of it, he could go for weeks before beginning to feel starved. He was still  _being_ starved, of course, and would still grow gradually weaker, but at a slower pace than a normal human being.

Than Tony.

He hoped their captors knew that, knew that Tony needed food more than Steve did. It was a silly thing to hope—they were being held hostage and tortured, these people weren't interested in their wellbeing—but he hoped all the same. He had to, just like he had to hope that Tony hadn't been tortured since that first day, like he had to hope that they weren't applying the same sleep deprivation tactics to Tony they'd been using on him because God knew the man didn't sleep enough as it was.

He also hoped Tony knew that none of this was his fault, but he knew Tony well enough to know that was the most pointless hope of all.

He'd just have to convince Tony himself when they escaped, Steve decided. Tony always tried to blame himself for everything under the sun, but Steve wasn't letting him this time. It was just another reason to get out alive, then. They had to, because Steve had to tell Tony it wasn't his fault enough times for Tony to believe him. Steve was aware that would take years if not a lifetime, but he was more than okay with that.

Without healing or hunger as a way to tell time, and no window to tell between night and day, Steve's internal clock began to unwind a bit.

Aside from an hour here and there, he was awake most of the time. The only reason he even bothered going to sleep every once in a while was because sleep gave him an hour or two of escape before Tiger woke him. He spent his time awake analyzing and re-analyzing his situation, going back over previous situations he'd escaped from, and entertaining different escape strategies. When that grew tedious, he tried the mental strategy games Tony had taught him, different little ways to up his mental game, though that only ever brought his thoughts right back to Tony.

For a while, Steve resisted. What good would thinking of Tony do now? All it did was infuriate and depress him in equal turn. Better he spend his time thinking of ways to get them out of here, or taking another look at his cell for something he'd missed, or even testing his strength against the wall again. It was pointless to even try and distract himself though, and Steve knew it. Left alone in a cell for days on end with nothing to occupy his time, his thoughts would inevitably circle back to Tony.

It was five, maybe six days by Steve's guess before his captors finally paid him a visit when he wasn't sleeping.

It was Tiger again, this time with Mantis, carrying the modified cattle prod Steve had become well acquainted with. The first time Tiger shoved it through the bars, Steve dodged on instinct. Giant electrified rod aiming for his gut? Duck and roll, check. The second time he didn't bother; it wasn't as if they were going to give up, and really, how long could he keep dodging? Best to get it over with.

It still somehow managed to be a surprise when the electricity slammed into him, leaving him breathless with pain as it coursed through his system. There was a burning in his side, and a heated hiss as the metal was pulled away from his seared flesh. Barely half a second passed before they jabbed him with it again, again, again, seven, maybe eight more times before Steve felt his body stop resisting. He didn't make a sound throughout the process, just grit his teeth, perhaps made a hissing sound of his own. When they were sure he wasn't moving anytime soon, they unlocked the cell door and made their way inside. Steve tried to call on his body to move, to attack, but found it impossible.

Mantis jabbed a needle in his neck anyway. His vision went a bit bleary at the edges, but he managed to grip to the edges of consciousness. He closed his eyes anyway, slowed his breathing, pretended it had worked. They were not be fooled; another shot found itself buried in his neck, and he drifted into the darkness.

* * *

The blackout lasted a week.

Tony pretty much lost his mind.

They all did, really. Tony may have felt like he was the only one unraveling, but it was more than clear when he stopped to notice that the others were going just as crazy. Bruce divided his time between sleeping for almost 24-hour periods and spending every waking moment in the SHIELD labs, devouring every bit of grunt work he could. His inability to provide a useful skill in this particular situation was eating him alive.

Tony thankfully did have a skill to contribute—thank god, or he would've long drank himself to death or incinerated himself in the lab—and it was his hacking skills that tracked down Himmler's presumed associates. Clint and Natasha were assigned to do the interviews, but Tony insisted on going along. They exchanged A Look, but let him, though they made him wait in the car. He argued that too until Natasha told him in no uncertain terms that they were better at this than he was, and did he want the best on Steve's case, or did he want an emotional wreck to fuck everything over?

Natasha had been even more blunt than usual, but no one could really blame her. It was just how she handled the stress. Clint, on the other hand, took to making everything a joke, and honestly? Tony preferred Natasha's vicious if truthful jibes to Clint's teasing jokes, even if they were funny. Laughing and goofing around while Steve was off being tortured god knows where just felt like a betrayal.

The first interview, with John Bravman, Bucknell University's president, proved useful. Tony listened in via upping the reception in the comm units both his teammates were wearing. Bravman started out with your standard bullshit routine, about Himmler being a normal, if somewhat reserved member of the faculty. He mentioned that Himmler had been very intense about his work, but that it was a pretty standard—looked for, even—quality in university professors. Himmler hadn't been working long enough to take a sanctioned sabbatical, but Bravman said he'd supported his decision to take a year off to be with family anyway.

They told Bravman that Himmler didn't have any known family that wanted to see him, and he wavered.

"I know what you're really questioning me for, you know." Bravman sighed, a burst of static over the line. "It's all over the news, and I don't like the implications you trying to make. Dr. Himmler was very well-respected here. His students adored him."

"Enough to help him?" Clint suggested.

"Our students?" Bravman was clearly taken aback. "No, they…well. No."

There was a silent moment, during which Tony had no trouble imagining the look Natasha was giving Bravman for his hesitation.

"There was…one incident. Last year, this girl…"

Mantis was easily young enough to be of college age.

"167 years we've been around, you know. 167 years, you're bound to run into some…trouble." Bravman seemed to be trying to make excuses for something, qualify it, but the spies weren't having it.

"We're not the police," Clint reminded him, "We're not here to arrest anyone. We're only here because you have information that could help us to track down a man whose actions have saved the nation, if not the world, more times than you know. We want that information-that's all. Then we're out of your hair."

"Libby Brockman." Bravman's eventual answer sounded pained, even over the comm line. "She was a freshman student here three years ago. Intelligent, charismatic…not the best SAT score or transcripts, but her essay? Flawless. Every word. And her interview…I've never met a more charming young woman."

Bravman was quiet for a long moment. Natasha pressed.

"And?"

"Dr. Himmler was the one who caught her. He was on duty to lock up the Rooke Center that week-we had faculty switching off weeks since our janitorial staff were on strike, and he'd always been very helpful with things like that-he was locking up the cadaver lab when he saw movement inside. He called campus security of course, waited until they arrived and went in together, all standard procedure for a break-in. They found Libby inside, she was…"

Bravman trailed off, giving a sigh of exhaustion and disgust before continuing.

"She was poking around with the cadavers. Cut them up with knives, pulled some apart with her hands. There were also some blood samples that it seemed she…ah, well…"

"Oh  _fuck_ no." Clint groaned in disgust, and there was the sound of a chair clattering as Clint probably stood up.

"She drank them," Natasha guessed stoically.

"Yes. She was…very sick. I'm unsure of the details, something to do with her father? He taught her unspeakable things. She was taken to a mental institution last I'd heard."

Tony busied himself finding the institution Bravman was talking about. It didn't take much; a search of 'Libby Brockman', 'mental institution' and 'blood' got him to the right place pretty quick, and hacking into their network was child's play. He pulled up her file, scanning through its contents. Libby Anne Brockman, age 22, committed and treated for antisocial personality disorder, rehabilitated and released just about half a year ago.

Around the same time Himmler announced he was going on a year's vacation.

Interesting.

A look through Libby's visitor logs supported Tony's suspicions—Himmler had visited her twelve times over the course of two years, and had spoken on her behalf when she was trying to be released.

"Himmler's definitely connected to this Libby freak," Tony relayed over the comm, "Visited her at Meadows—her psych ward. She's got three other visitors listed. A Tyler Brockman, listed as a cousin, visited once, then a Jake Simmons, listed as a friend, came a handful of times, then a—wait. Jake Simmons. I know that name. Why do I know that name?"

"Common name," Natasha pointed out.

"Google him," Clint suggested.

"Oh, gee, thanks, that's so helpful." Tony rolled his eyes, but figured it couldn't hurt. He flicked through the twenty-four year old's twitter and facebook pages, not finding anything particularly useful or even interesting. "Look, it doesn't matter. We've got new leads. Ask if Bravman recognizes Himmler's voice on the video, then let's go see if Tyler knows where his cousin's at."

Bravman did indeed recognize Himmler's voice, though he couldn't say for certain if Mantis was Libby. Too many students come and gone since then, he'd claimed. Personally, Tony was of the opinion he just didn't want to associate his school in the whole thing any further, but Tony was also of the opinion that he really could not give less of a shit about reputations right now.

The DMV didn't list a recent place of residence for Libby and SHIELD couldn't turn up anything either, so they moved on to Tyler. Tony was yet again not allowed to come along on the interview, and when he argued, Clint told him he could come to the interviews when he could think about Steve being tortured without throwing phones at people's heads. Tony protested that it had just the been the one time and it had been at the wall anyway, while Clint just got huffy and claimed that Tony had missed him by inches at best. Natasha eventually just rolled her eyes and left them to bicker in the car while she dealt with it herself.

It didn't matter in the end; Tyler had nothing useful for the search. He said most of the family had stopped speaking to her and her father a long time ago, and he'd only gone to see if she really was doing any better. He told them Libby had a colorful history with the law, a runaway mother, and a sadist father who taught her everything he knew, but none of this got them any closer to finding where she and Himmler might be holding Steve, or to figuring out Tiger and Monkey's identities.

There were more interviews-with her other visitor, the nurses at Meadows, the doctor who'd worked with Libby-but everyone just said the same things, none of it helpful. She was incredibly disturbed, no doubt, but according to anyone who'd met her, she could be charming as hell when she wanted and was able to talk her way out of anything.

Which was good, because someone was probably going have to talk Tony out of killing her.

Then, after a week of blackout, they had visual again. JARVIS informed Tony of this while he was halfway to SHIELD headquarters, and Tony broke at least three different laws—illegal u-turn, speeding, not using his blinker, and that was just what he could think of—turning around and getting his ass back to the Tower. Four laws, he thought to himself as he picked up his phone.

_**Tell me you're watching the feed like you're supposed to be –Tony** _

_**duh. was just bout 2 txt u. get ur ass back asap –Clint** _

_**On it. Is he okay? How does he look? –Tony** _

_**unconscious –Clint** _

_**Care to be a little more descriptive? –Tony** _

_**im not u, im not gonna write an ode to his every feature. he just looks unconscious _ **–**_ Clint** _

_**I'm not asking for fucking poetry, I just meant you could maybe give me a little more to work with than his state of consciousness _ **–**_ Tony** _

_**idk, hes kinda dirty? guess they havent been letting him shower. the fuck else do u want from me –Clint** _

_**Maybe for you not to be such a sarcastic little shit while our leader's being tortured by the enemy –Tony** _

_**oh fuck off. maybe i should just stop sleeping and eating anything but coffee and skulk around the tower like a some homeless ghost instead, would that make u happy? –Clint** _

Before Tony could even reply, his phone pinged again immediately.

_**fuck of course it wouldnt -Clint** _

_**look srry im just fucking stressed and i know what ur trying to ask, i just needed to be a dick about it. the scars r gone, the serum healed him fine. hes in a diff room 2, and its set up kinda weird –Clint** _

_**Weird how? –Tony** _

_**it looks kinda like a police station, if that makes sense. like, steves in 1 part of the room, and he can c thru this big window thing 2 the other part. i mean, steves up against a wall like b4, but he can c thru the window –Clint** _

_**And? –Tony** _

_**ur driving, u should probably just wait and c it 4 urself –Clint** _

_**My week's already been shot to hell, if you hadn't noticed. I don't have any surprise left in me at this point. Just tell me –Tony** _

_**theyve got ur magic twin person in there w/tiger. hes tied up in a chair and looks beat to shit, but tigers not actually doing anything to him atm. theyre just sitting there, and no 1 is saying anything. its fuckin weird –Clint** _

Tony pressed the gas a little more, but he'd been telling the truth; there wasn't much left in him to surprise.

_**Joy. -Tony** _

_**h8 2 say it bro but my assassin senses r tingling and not in a good way –Clint** _

Tony thankfully returned to the Tower before Steve woke up. He was dirtier than they'd last seen, grime and sweat sticking to his clothes, but he looked better—not good, obviously, but better. Clint had been telling the truth, his wounds had healed completely, and he hung unconscious from a wall by the same little silvery orbs as last week.

Fake Tony was tied to a chair. There was blood trickling from a head wound, and he had a number of bruises on his face and arms. He was gagged, but he didn't seem particularly afraid, or even numb. He just seemed like he was waiting, which was strange, but Tony was distracted from that train of thought by Steve beginning to stir awake.

* * *

The first thing Steve saw when he woke was Tony, gagged and tied to a chair. The sight hit him low and hard; he'd been trying so hard not to think of Mantis' threat, but he'd known it was only a matter of time.

"God, Tony…" He hadn't mean to speak, but the words slipped past his lips before he could stop them.

They were separated into different rooms, divided by a window. Steve wasn't sure if Tony could hear him, or even see him, until Tony's head swiveled at his name. He shot up, his eyes going wide, calling something too muffled by the gag to understand.

"He's awake," Tiger announced, not to Tony or Steve, but to the ceiling.

A speaker system of sorts, then. Steve squinted to see it, but abandoned that when Mantis came bursting into his room, hauling a chair behind her.

"Hello, dolly! Wide awake I see!" she chirped merrily, planting the chair right beside him and sitting herself down, "Just in time for the show!"

"What do you want from me?" Steve grit his teeth.

"I told you, silly, the Black Widow's na—"

"I don't mean that." Steve shook his head. "I want to know the endgame, what you're working me up to tell you. What do you really want from me?"

"Wondering if it's worth it?" Mantis gave a little laugh, "Don't tell me you're considering giving up before we even begin?"

Steve didn't answer.

He wasn't, not really. Part of it was stubbornness, though Steve could easily overcome stubbornness for Tony's sake. A larger part of it was moral code, and knowing that whatever information they wanted from him would likely go to ill use. But if Steve was honest with himself…depending on the information…if he was forced to choose between upholding his moral code and saving Tony's life…well. It didn't matter. Because he knew that Tony wouldn't give in so easily to some psycho supervillain, and would hate Steve doing so for his sake.

So he had no plans to give in, but he was still a tactician. The more information he had about the stakes and what his captors wanted, the better he could anticipate them.

"Oh, that's no fun," Mantis chastised, "You've got to enjoy the thrill of the game a bit first, dolly."

"You want information from me, torture me. Bringing him into this does nothing but—"

"Make you angry?" Mantis stood in a flash, catching his chin in her hand, "Make your blood  _boil?_ Doesn't it ache to know that he's in pain, and it's all your fault? That he wouldn't even be here if you weren't so delightfully sentimental?"

Steve jerked his chin away, eyes narrowing threateningly.

"Such a dark look from such lovely eyes," Mantis just purred, "Glare all you like, but I'm afraid it's quite true. In fact…"

Mantis was smirking now, moving away from Steve to tap the glass that separated him from Tony.

"Why don't we make that your safeword for today? When you're ready to give in, darling…" Mantis turned to look at Tony with a gleeful smile, "Why don't you just look your beloved in the eye and tell him this is all your fault, hm?"

Steve grit his teeth but didn't say anything.

He knew all too well that it wouldn't do either of them any good. It would just be giving Mantis what she wanted, would just be giving in, and Tony wouldn't want him to do that. Tony would believe in him, would trust him to stay strong; Steve could do that, but it didn't mean he could look Tony in the eye right now. Mantis just sat next to him, lounging a bit as she giggled and offered up suggestions for where Tiger should hit Tony next.

Tony's shouts of pain were stifled by the gag, but Steve had to choke back his reaction anyway. He could hear the dull thumps of Tiger's fists, his superhearing able to deduce all too well the power behind each blow, the strength of each strike. Tiger wasn't to be underestimated, and Steve remembered yet again Tony's lack of healing ability.

The beating went on for what felt like years, and Steve had to bite his lip until it bled to stay silent.

"Oh, dolly…" Mantis murmured when she noticed, standing again. She moved into Steve's space this time, tracing her thumb over his bottom lip. He was tempted to try and bite her, but it would do more harm than good. "You're struggling, aren't you? Dying to talk to me like the good little boy I know you are?"

Steve contemplated biting her again, but before he could, she was close, too close, and her lips were crushing his. It was more of an attempt to lick the blood from his lip than a kiss, but it was equally repulsive, and Steve struggled to turn away. He couldn't quite manage it from this angle, so he settled for something that would at least be satisfying—he bit down on her lip sharply.

Mantis pulled away with a hiss of pain, her lip torn, blood already streaking across her cheek, soaking into the mask. Steve had been right; it was incredibly satisfying, for all of the minute his upper hand lasted. Then she was pinning him with a look that told him all too clearly he'd made a mistake.

"You've been a very bad, bad little boy," she warned, wiping at her mouth before turning to the window. Tiger had started towards the door-to help her or to get assistance, who knew-but Mantis waved a hand to stop him. "The Captain wishes to step up the game."

"Now?" Tiger asked, somewhat hesitant, and Mantis let out a vicious growl.

"Yes,  _now._ Do it!"

Steve looked between them, bewildered and a bit panicked at what "stepping up the game" meant for Tony. Then Tiger bent down to pick something up off the floor Steve hadn't been at an angle to see before. It was mechanical in nature, though nothing Steve recognized, claw-like and metal. It wasn't until Tiger was leaning over Tony's chest with the device that Steve put it together.

" _No!"_ He shot forward immediately, yanking against his restraints violently, unable to keep silent.

"Best start talking,  _Captain,"_ Mantis sneered, "You have until he dies. You know your safeword, don't you?"

Steve opened his mouth immediately to speak, and found himself frozen as Tiger's machine dug it's claws into Tony's chest. There was a sharp click and for a moment he thought they were going to rip the whole thing out, socket and all. Then there was a hiss and a pop, and the glowing blue arc was plucked right from Tony's body. It was the terror in his eyes that returned Steve's ability to speak.

"It's my fault!" Steve blurted, managing to speak at last, trying desperately to remember the exact phrasing in case Mantis felt like being picky, "This is my fault! I said it, now put it back!"

"I don't know…" Mantis hummed, "I sensed a bit of hesitance. Do you  _truly_ believe that this is your fault?"

" _Yes!"_ Mantis was toying with him of course, but Steve was too panicked to register it, to do anything but give the answers needed for her to let Tiger put the arc back. Tony was slumping now, as much as the ropes let him, his skin beginning to look clammy and pale. He was trying to gasp for air, but was blocked by the gag. It wasn't enough, he needed— "He's going to choke, he can't breathe like that, his lung capacity—"

"Is quite diminished, I'm sure." Mantis examined her nails with a haughty smirk.

"I did what you wanted, just put it back!"

"No."

Mantis' reply was one simple, hissed word, but it sent Steve's world crashing down around him. Helplessness hit him like a wave, dragging him under and beating him down. If he hadn't gotten caught, if he hadn't kept the picture, if he hadn't bit Mantis—he felt his breathing speed up, felt his heart racing like it was trying to climb out his throat. He struggled against his restraints in vain, twisted and turning violently. He almost popped his shoulder trying to yank his hands down, but he didn't care,  _couldn't_  care, hell, he'd break his arms if it got him out, got him to Tony before—

He couldn't see straight anymore. Everything was a blur, just a haze on the edges of his vision as he focused on Tony. Tony, growing steadily paler, Tony choking on the gag, Tony struggling to breathe as that stupid shrapnel inched closer to his heart while Steve just fucking hung there, each agonizing minute another step closer to Tony's dea—

Steve gave a choked sob. He wanted to tell Tony something, anything to make it better, but when he opened his mouth all that came out was _sorry_ , _I'm so sorry, Tony, so sorry,_  over and over again. It was nothing but a stream of broken, useless apologies that wouldn't help either of them, and he tried to say anything else, but the words wouldn't come. He tried to say  _I love you_ , but it stuck on his tongue, cheap and worthless and far too late.

In the end, he just wept.

* * *

Tony couldn't watch.

Steve's sobs of apology echoed in his ears anyway. He wanted to keep watching, because Steve deserved his focus, but couldn't seem to get his head to lift. He wanted to leave, but his legs weren't responding either. His body wasn't listening to him at all, really, which explained why his hands were shaking so violently he looked like he was having a seizure.

Clint thankfully didn't notice, mostly because neither of them were able to process anything other than Steve.

At what must've been the last possible moment, Mantis waved a hand to Tiger, who hastily slammed the arc back into fake Tony's chest. Fake Tony convulsed, coughed violently, and slumped forward, gasping for air around the gag. Steve did much the same, though without the coughing. He murmured something too low for the speakers to catch, though it sounded something like a prayer.

_"I think you mean to thank me, dolly."_

Steve didn't seem to have the energy to bother with a denial. He just hung there a moment, catching his breath, then spoke to Tony instead.

 _"God, Tony."_ His words were soft, reverent, and impossibly thankful. They went straight to the knot in Tony's chest that hadn't loosened since the incident, soothing and worrying all at once. _"I'm so sorry."_

Fake Tony didn't even lift his head.

 _"Oh, would you look at that."_ Mantis giggled. _"It's so easy to turn people against each other these days, isn't it? The lovely little boy blames you already."_

The color had returned to fake Tony's face, but he was still slumping forward, studiously examining the floor. His eyes flickered up to Steve at Mantis' words, then away.

 _"Tony?"_ Steve called cautiously, the guarded worry in that one word all too evident.

How even a fake Tony could resist looking at Steve when he called his name like that Tony couldn't possibly understand, but fake Tony just kept his head down. He seemed guilty in the way his eyes darted about though, and his behavior made his answer all too obvious.

Then, Steve was  _laughing._

He just burst into hysterical, uncontrollable laughter, and nothing Mantis or Tiger said or did after that seemed to register with him. His body shook he was laughing so hard, and Tony felt his heart sink in his chest.

They'd broken him.


	4. Chapter 4

Steve could not stop laughing.

It wasn't the right response by a long shot; it wasn't even really that funny, if he thought about it. Not to mention it was nowhere near the right time to be laughing like a lunatic, but God, he couldn't help it. He was just so relieved, so blissfully happy in spite of the crazy situation that there was no other way he  _could_ express himself.

Tony was safe.

Even better, he'd  _been_ safe. They'd never had him, or they wouldn't have bothered with a fake. It had all been one big manipulation, and a damn good one, but he was so desperately glad that they had done it instead of the real thing. He knew he shouldn't laugh, he should play along and see where the game went, but he just didn't have it in him.

"I don't see what's so funny, dolly." Mantis' lips were pursed, clearly not amused.

"That's…that was good," Steve said at last, still laughing a bit in spite of himself, "Really,  _really_ good, I'll give you that. I mean, my God. I bought it. I really did. I blame the gag. I'd know the way he talks, no one has a mouth like Tony."

"I don't know what you're on about, dolly, but that  _is_  Tony, I assure you—"

"I don't know how you did it, but I assure  _you,_ the man you have there is not Tony Stark." Steve huffed a laugh, more to himself than to her. "There's a couple solid, unchangeable facts about the universe, and that Tony Stark will blame himself for anything and everything he can, until the end of time itself, is one of them. You know he hauled me unconscious out of a burning building once, literally saved my life, and he still blames himself because my suit caught on fire? I got maybe a second-degree burn at best, healed in less than a day, not to mention I got it because I _voluntarily_ ran into a _burning building,_ yet he feels like he failed me somehow because he didn't see into the future and 'just know' to make my suit fireproof."

"Touching tale, really, but the fact that you almost got him killed certainly can change a man's mind—"

"Ungag him then." Steve shrugged. "Or don't, that's fine, but ask him what the last thing he said to me was. Because if that's Tony Stark, I guarantee you he can recite it word for word, because it's been on repeat in his head since the moment you picked me up."

"Fine." Mantis gave a little sneer, glancing from Steve to Tiger. "Do it."

"Mantis." Tiger shot her a look of warning.

"You'll excuse us a moment, Captain." Monkey came through the door then, taking Mantis by the arm and yanking her right back out with him.

Tiger stayed in the room with the fake Tony, though they both went slack, the look in their eyes vacant and nonresponsive. Steve examined them curiously, until his superhearing caught the conversation down the hall.

Superhearing could occasionally be awkward, but Steve couldn't say it wasn't exceptionally useful at times like these.

"Have you lost what's left of your mind?" Monkey hissed on the other side of the door. "How the fuck are we going to come up with his last words?"

Steve chuckled to himself; Monkey's words just confirmed what he already knew. The last thing Tony had said to him had been a jab about wishing he'd go away, next thing they knew, they might've never seen each other again. There was no way in heaven or hell the king of self-blame wasn't blaming himself for this, torture or not.

"We don't have to say his last words, just…have him give Rogers a line about how he's sorry, how he wishes things were different or whatever," Mantis suggested.

"Don't tell me you actually think he's that stupid," Monkey sneered, "What happened to little miss mentalist—"

"Don't use that pathetic carnie term on me!" Mantis snapped.

"Sorry, should I call you a bloody mind fucker then?" Monkey snarled, and there was a scuffling sort of sound, but someone stepped in.

"Hey! Both of you, calm down. We can't ungag him, and you know it. Rogers said it himself, no one snarks like a Stark."

Steve smiled to himself in spite of everything. That hadn't been quite what he'd said, but it was certainly true. Then his smile faltered; wasn't that Tiger's voice? It definitely was, the same slow, deep cadence to it he recognized, but Tiger was still visible in the other room. Interesting.

"Fuck off, Mason. Jake, you worked for—"

"Codenames," Tiger, apparently Mason, reminded Mantis insistently.

"Oh, don't be so bloody formal," Monkey snapped, "You read the reports, it's not like he can hear us all the way down the hall."

"Jake, Chameleon, whatever." Mantis dismissed, and Steve raised his eyebrows in surprise.

So he  _was_ Chameleon. Why had he introduced himself as Monkey? Something about blending in, probably. He'd been playing a friendly face, at least at first. If he'd introduced himself as Chameleon, it'd have been all the more obvious it was a game. Huh. Well, it didn't matter much now anyway, because Mantis was still talking.

"The point is, you worked for Stark for what, six years? You don't think you can fake one conversation?" Mantis insisted.

"Yeah, and he was a jackass who never showed up to the meetings." Monkey, Chameleon, Jake, whoever he was, seemed aggravated. "I've barely ever said two words to the guy."

Clearly a disgruntled ex-employee. Did they want information on Tony, then? But if that was true, why hadn't they kidnapped Tony himself? Not that Steve would've  _preferred_ that, not by a long shot, but logically speaking if they wanted information to do with Tony, he was a far easier target than a supersoldier.

"'sides, he wouldn't talk to his tortured boyfriend same way he'd talk to some underling stuck under his shoe," Mason pointed out, "Eccentric genius jerk or not, there's more'n one side to him—"

"Shut up," Jake snapped, "I'm more of a genius than that bastard ever was, it's not my fault he was too god damn busy chasing tail and getting wasted to recognize my potential."

"Good to know you're not bitter about it." Mantis gave a little snort of laughter.

"Oh fuck you, this is all your fault in the first place—"

"What, it's  _my_ fault he figured it out?"

"It's sure as hell not mine!"

"One minute I have him bawling about losing his little boyfriend, next he's on about how it's not Stark! Obviously, your stupid little program malfunctioned somehow!"

Program, huh? Steve examined the fake Tony and strangely vacant Tiger, craning his neck to peer through the glass. Did they mean like a computer program? Like one of Tony's holographic type things, maybe? He'd seen Tony mess with huge, colored holographs of the Iron Man suit before, testing things with the program before trying them on the suit, but he hadn't seen anything quite so  _real_ before.

The man in front of him really did look like Tony. Hell, he stared at the man often enough to know. He had all the same features, same proportions, even the same laugh lines by his mouth, same concentration wrinkles by his eyes. Same eyes, too, though he supposed he was far enough he couldn't really see the look in them that well.

It made sense though, he supposed. If it was a program, that would explain why he could see Tiger here, but hear him in the hall. Not to mention why both Tiger and the fake Tony had gone completely vacant once his captors went to the hall to argue; likely there was no one controlling the hologram anymore.

"Piss off," Jake snapped, "This has nothing to do with my program, it's executing flawlessly and you know it. This is  _human_ error, and you'd better get in there and fix it before Lion does."

"There's nothing to fix! He's convinced it's not Stark, how the hell am I supposed to prove it is?"

"Fine, then just stick him again, we'll bring him back in when we've got a new plan," Jake ordered.

"Why stick him?" Mantis complained, "He's already awake, I want to play a bit first."

"There's no point in torturin' him right now," Mason tried to argue, "He's not gonna say anything."

"I don't care if he says anything, he's all smug right now because Stark's safe; I don't think  _happy_ is a good condition to leave him in, do you?"

"Fine, whatever, have at it." Jake seemed unconcerned. "Mason, you're with me. Think can you come up with something to wipe his memory?"

"I'm a chemist, not a brain surgeon." Mason seemed skeptical. "'sides, someone needs to watch Libby—"

"Relax, you baby, I'm not going to kill him. I just think I deserve to have a little fun after all my trouble, don't you?"

Huh. So Mason was the chemist behind whatever drug they'd developed to knock him under. It was too bad he'd gone into villainy instead of medicine; he must've had a hell of a brain. Even Bruce and Tony's combined efforts hadn't managed anything that kept him out longer than an hour, though it was admittedly more of a side project to them than anything else.

Then he couldn't hear any more talking, and Mantis was striding back into the room.

"Miss me, lovely?"

"I counted the seconds."

"Ooh, sarcasm, aren't you just a delight," Mantis muttered, wasting no time crossing to the table to his right, snatching up one of the four prepared needles, "Yes, yes, we get it, your boyfriend's alive, no need to gloat."

Then, fast as her whips, she'd pricked him with the needle.

Steve felt his head loll a bit; maybe it was the drug, maybe he was just too relieved to watch his mouth, either way he just gave Mantis a dopey, lop-sided grin.

"I know. Isn't it wonderful?"

Her mutter of "smug little bastard" was the last thing he heard.

* * *

"Well. Your boyfriend seems happy—"

"Shut up," Tony snapped at Clint.

"Oh but Tony, you're alive, isn't it wonderful?" Clint pretended to bat his eyelashes.

"You really want to mock me about my non-existent boyfriend while he's being tortured?" Tony shot Clint a threatening look.

"Okay, first, he's not being tortured right  _now_ ," Clint pointed out, though he seemed somewhat guilty, quickly moving on to his next point, "Second, seriously Tony, are we seeing the same guy? Can you not see the way he talks about you, or the look in his eyes when he found out you were okay? Or, god, the way he reacted when they pulled out your reactor? You'd think it was _his_  chest they'd ripped it out of."

"Yeah, Clint, I saw it."

"Did you?" Clint snorted, "Because you've been sitting there with a blank look on your face since Mantis left. I mean, it's been like an hour—"

"It's been half a minute, you jackass, I'm processing," Tony scowled, but stood anyway.

He tapped his fingers along the reactor nervously. There were too many conflicting reactions fighting for his attention. He was still very focused on finding the bastards doing this to Steve and ending them—obviously. His background emotions, however, were a whirl of worry, confusion, and the beginnings of guilty hope.

Steve had cried.

Over  _him._

Tony hated that Steve had been reduced to that, hated that he'd been used against Steve like some cheap manipulation, but the fact that it had affected Steve like that at all…Tony wasn't sure quite what it meant. Steve cared about them all, of course. Much as Tony disliked it, he knew that Steve thought of them as his soldiers, knew that he considered them "his". Steve felt a duty to the soldiers under his care, but he cared about and was exceedingly protective of them too. Tony had been on the receiving end of enough lectures on safety and teamwork to know that Steve felt responsible for them, and he had to wonder if Steve wouldn't have reacted the same to  _any_ teammate undergoing that sort of torture.

Who was he to think himself special?

It was the photograph that bugged Tony. It was silly to dwell on and probably incidental, but Steve wasn't the sentimental type, at least not with things. He didn't keep lots of photos lying around, much less in his wallet. Tony had kept his because it was the beginning of a friendship that had come to mean more to him; could it be possible Steve had done the same?

Even as he contemplated it, he felt guilty. What the hell was he thinking, focusing on that right now? Steve was being held captive by psychopaths, Tony's feelings about him were unimportant at best and actively damaging at worst. He needed to put it all aside, at least until they could bring him home.

"Why isn't the screen going black? Don't they usually black us out when Steve goes unconscious?" Clint observed.

Tony turned back to the screen; it was true. Steve was unconscious, but they could still see Mantis putting the one needle she'd used back on the table next to Steve and exiting the room. Then, without further notice, the fake Tony disappeared. Not just him, either, but the chair, the ropes that tied him to it, Tiger, everything. Clint gaped, and Tony swore.

"A hologram," Tony growled, "No wonder it was such a perfect match."

"How…but that Tiger guy was hitting him—"

"Also a hologram. They're good," Tony admitted, "But I'm willing to bet that's why we couldn't find a license or residence for that Jake Simmons that visited Libby. He's a tech guy, he's tried to erase himself. Now that we know he's trying to hide though, I bet I can…"

Tony trailed off, already pulling out his phone and using JARVIS to try some advanced search methods, fishing for any ghost trails lying around the interwebs. He pulled up a result quick enough once he knew what to look for. Jake Simmons—age twenty-four, worked for StarkIndustries for six years, working his way from teenage intern to an independent researcher in the Holographics division of R&D. Figured. He'd been fired a year ago, caught hacking into parts of the StarkIndustries mainframe he had no right to access. He'd failed, been given a suspension, tried again, failed again, and been fired over it.

"Hey." Clint got his attention. "Tony, they left the feed on."

Tony temporarily put aside his hunt for Jake to check the screen. It was true; though the others were gone and Steve was out cold, the feed was still on. Tony turned to Clint, who was giving him a pitying sort of look, and Tony was affronted until the implications of it occurred to him.

"They're going to torture him again."

Even as Tony said the words, his hands started to shake. He was going to be sick. He couldn't watch that again, he'd barely managed it the first time. He'd probably only been able to stay in the room that time out of pure shock, not to mention the inability to watch Steve be treated like that and  _function_ at the same time.

"I can't—"

Tony made a choked off noise that under any other circumstance would've been horrifically embarrassing. Under these circumstances, very little mattered to Tony at the moment other than getting the fuck out of the room before he had to hear Steve scream again.

"They might've just forgot—" Clint tried to make it sound better, but it was pointless.

Tony managed to get his feet to move, spurred by sudden visions of Steve's chest eviscerated like raw meat, his blood thick pooling as the carpet under Tony's feet. He was out of the room before Clint could say anything else, the world spinning like a tilt-a-whirl gone wrong. He took off down the hall, head pounding, heart racing, hands still shaking. Before he could think about anything, much less where he was going, he was slamming open a door, his knees were hitting the tile, and he was vomiting until he saw stars.

It was the first time he'd reacted so violently. He wanted to since the moment he'd first seen them draw blood, but he hadn't been able to let himself. Reacting like that made it personal, made it something that affected him, and Tony couldn't afford that. He couldn't  _function_  like that. He'd clung so desperately to the delusion that this was some sick joke, that because it was a video it wasn't quite real somehow, that it couldn't actuallybe happening. Because how could that be happening? In what world did that sort of thing happen to  _Steve?_

This was the man who made him smiley face breakfasts when he had morning meetings. The man who knew the ten different ways Tony took his coffee, and could tell which way he wanted it with one look at his face. The man who only swore in battle, who flushed red as the flag on his chest when Tony peeked at his sketchpad, who watched baseball games with an intense delight usually reserved for kids under the age of ten. Steve Rogers was kind and reserved and selfless, and Tony couldn't comprehend the idea that someone out there was actually  _torturing_ him.

He couldn't hold it together anymore. No matter how much he wanted to keep trying to delude himself otherwise, it wasn't some random civilian in there, it was Steve, it was  _his Steve_ god damn it _,_  and Tony couldn't keep pretending that didn't make him physically ill.

He emptied the contents of his stomach until his throat burned like he'd swallowed acid. When there was nothing left in his system to give, he collapsed, dropping his head against the seat. He wasn't sure how long he stayed there, struggling just to catch his breath.

"JAR—" Tony started to call after a while, but his throat was dry and trying to speak stung, surprising him into a cough. When he'd cleared his throat, he tried again. "JARVIS. Is he…is Mantis…?"

"Yes, sir," JARVIS answered as gently as the AI could.

Turns out Tony's body had a little more to give after all.

When he finished this time, the stars clouding his vision didn't go away. He was going to need an Advil or ten at some point, but he couldn't bring himself to move other than to wipe his mouth with his shirtsleeve. Clint wisely didn't come to try and talk sense into him. What sense was there to talk? There was nothing to be done. For all his money, his fame, his power, there was absolutely nothing Tony could do to help the one person he loved more than anything.

The man who had everything but nothing, indeed.

Tony was probably there another hour before Clint burst into the bathroom, waving his phone, looking like he'd just won the lottery. Tony looked up at him, at the sheer ecstatic delight on his face, and felt the first swell of optimism in weeks. Something in Tony lit up then, warm and thrilled and explosive. It felt like there were fireworks in his veins, and his hands were already twitching for his suit. The word escaped before he could stop it, pitifully desperate and blindingly hopeful all at once.

"Please."

"Suit up." Clint just gave a grin that looked like it was going to burst off his face.

Tony shot up fast enough to unbalance himself, but Clint caught him, steadying him by the waist. He was too excited to even bother to make old man jokes, tugging Tony along towards the workshop.

"Your suit can get there hours before the Quinjet," Clint told him as he keyed in the passcode, "That's time Steve needs. Fury wants you to wait and come with us, but that's bullshit and we both know it. Anyone asks, I tried to stop you and you stole my phone for the address, got it?"

"Got it," Tony nodded, gesturing for JARVIS to suit him up as he stepped onto the assembly platform. The suitcase suit would save maybe a minute now, but the latest Mark was faster and would save more time overall.

"Look." Clint took him by one arm before he could start assembly. "I know you want them dead, we all do. But they have a mole, it's how we got the location in the first place, one of their insiders tipped us off. We don't know who it is, but we need them alive so they can tell us more. Listen to me, Tony, you can't kill them, any of them—"

"I'm not a child, Barton," Tony protested angrily, pulling his arm away, but Clint just yanked him back.

"No one in this group is a fucking child," Clint snapped, "We're bitter, vindictive adults, and we want desperately to kill the ones who hurt the people we love. But we can't, because we're also the good guys and that's not what we do if we can help it."

Clint stared him down for a long minute, until Tony dropped his gaze.

"Yeah. Got it."

"I already texted JARVIS the address, he'll GPS it for you. Tasha and Bruce are swinging by here with the Quinjet in five minutes. It's halfway across the country, so we'll be there…three, four hours, tops. Fast as we can be, anyway."

"Thank you, Clint. I…thanks."

Clint clapped a hand on Tony's shoulder, squeezing it once before letting go.

"Go get our Captain back."

* * *

Steve couldn't see straight.

He'd been awake…an hour? Possibly two. He wasn't sure anymore. It had begun to bleed together. Bleed. Hah. It was funny, not really, but it was better than thinking too hard about it. He winced as Mantis…he'd heard her name, he thought, but it escaped him as she dug the blade of the knife under his fingernails.

The pain was more than he'd expected. She'd gotten creative now, likely because she seemed very, very upset. He'd known why an hour ago. He couldn't remember now. Whatever her reasons, she hadn't been content with whipping him this time. She seemed to be favoring the knife now, stabbing him twice—three times? He couldn't remember—before taking to prying his nails up with a knife.

She was probably still talking, but Steve had long lost the ability to listen. The pain still ripped through him when she tried something new, but most of the time he was numb to it. At least, he thought he was; his throat hurt. He might've been screaming. He wasn't sure.

He'd forced his mind elsewhere. He thought of Tony, of course. Live, safe Tony. He thought of all the little things he missed, filled himself up with warm, happy images. Images of Tony, all ruffled hair and bleary eyes, muttering nonsense as he stumbled into the kitchen, nonresponsive and groping for coffee. Tony, slipping and sliding around in fire extinguisher foam, wide-eyed with surprise, ears pink in embarrassment, sputtering about how he was going to turn that "ugly hunk of scrap" into a blender so he might be useful.

Tony, stealing Steve's sketchbook right out of his hands with mischief in his eyes, that mischief turning to wonder as he flicked through the pages. Tony, worry and fear in his eyes as he helped Steve up, let him lean on his shoulder, talking a million miles an hour to cover for Steve's pained silence in the wake of a particularly bad battle. Tony, diving across Steve's lap in an attempt to steal the remote before Steve could switch the channel, refusing to move until he got the remote and eventually falling asleep there when Steve wouldn't give in. Tony, murmuring in his sleep about ionic bonds and armor upgrades, a soft, easy smile on his face Steve got to see far too rarely.

God, that smile.

Tony had a hundred different smiles, but there was something about that one in particular Steve was sure Tony could get him to do anything with. It wasn't quite a full grin, not like the one that flashed across Tony's face like wildfire, lighting him up and crinkling not just his eyes but the entire sides of his face in delight. It wasn't the half-smirk he did either, a flicker of amusement dancing across his face, the smile more in his eyes than his mouth. No, the smile Steve would walk through fire for was a smile Steve had only ever seen when Tony was asleep.

There was something so open about that soft curve of his lips, something honest, something Steve found himself utterly unable to resist. There was a sweet sort of happiness to it that Tony hardly ever let himself indulge in, and on the rare occasion Tony fell asleep on or around him, Steve was reluctant to leave his side. He knew it was probably somewhat strange of him, but he couldn't help himself. Tony allowed himself to be vulnerable in front of Steve, more so than he would in front of anyone else anyway, and Steve treasured that.

A pang of agony tore through his happy thoughts, and Steve quickly blocked it back out. He picked a favorite memory: just a few weeks ago, though it felt like years at the moment. They'd fallen asleep watching a movie, somehow managing to maneuver themselves closer and closer together until Steve was waking up at least an hour after the movie was over curled into the corner of the couch, Tony sprawled out on top of him.

Pain rippled through the memory, and Steve forced himself to focus. He focused on the warmth of Tony's cheek against his chest, the angles of his sleep-mussed hair, the play of light across his tanned skin. He remembered the feather-soft feel of Tony's hair as he cautiously carded his fingers through it, remembered the easy, lilting curve of Tony's smile as he gave a drowsy but happy-sounding murmur.

Then, without warning, he was having a new vision.

Tony, decked in red and gold, bursting through the door at a million miles an hour, all power and heat and fury. Steve blinked in surprise; the vision was startlingly clear. He watched, completely out of his body, as Mantis caught sight of Iron Man and lashed out. She lodged her knife deep into Steve's gut, dragging it across and twisting once before Tony was colliding into her, sending her crashing against the wall. She dropped like a stone, but Tony didn't so much as look at her, already focused on Steve.

The vision faded, became bleary around the edges. Pain was intruding now, low and sharp and insistent. Swear words and his name were all Steve could hear, the voice mechanical, but still panicked and terrified. Steve wondered why he would imagine such a thing.

Metal hands cradled Steve's face, shaking him gently to get a response. Steve tried to respond to this vision of Tony calling his name, but didn't have the strength. Tony was swearing again, and he disengaged his helmet lock, tossing the thing aside to grab Steve by the face and kiss him hard.

Oh, God.

He wasn't dreaming anymore, wasn't imagining anything. This Tony was real, was solid against him, was _kissing_ him. It wasn't a complex kiss, would've almost been a peck if it weren't for how hard Tony pressed and how long he held it. He released Steve without fanfare to look into his eyes, desperately searching for some kind of response.

He'd been crying.

Tony's eyes were red-rimmed, and the marks were still there on his cheeks. Steve automatically moved to drop a hand to Tony's cheek, smudge it away, and was confused to feel the restraints stop him. In his daze he turned to look up at it, only to have Tony pull him back by the chin fiercely, and it was then that Steve belatedly realized Tony was talking.

" _Please,_ Steve, I'm so sorry, so fucking sorry, I'm here now and the others will be soon, god, can you hear me at all? Please, Steve, please talk to me, tell me you're okay, tell me I'm not too late—"

"Tony," Steve rasped at last, still unable to believe he was  _here._ Then, another late realization, "There are others, you aren't safe—"

"Oh my god you're oka—" Tony just blurted, moving as if he was going to hug Steve, then stopping abruptly. His eyes dropped to Steve's stomach, still bleeding profusely, and his voice wavered. "Fuck."

"Please," Steve murmured, "I'm okay, just…please."

_Touch me._

Tony was still as able to read his mind as always, and he pulled Steve to him. It hurt, but that wasn't a surprise, and Steve didn't flinch. It was a good hurt, anyway; it was real. It was Tony, here, alive and safe and bringing him home.

The metal of the Iron Man suit was cold, more impersonal than he'd have liked, and he couldn't drop his arms to hug Tony back yet, but the embrace was still more than he'd had left in him to hope for. It was a miracle in and of itself, and Steve dropped his head to Tony's shoulder. He didn't care if it was invasive, he buried his nose in the crook of Tony's neck and breathed in the scent of metal and cologne, of coffee and oil and  _Tony,_ and relaxed for the first time in weeks.

"I'm so sorry, Steve," Tony murmured into his hair, his voice soft and unsteady. He might've been crying again, Steve couldn't be sure. "It's meaningless and too late and not enough but I am so god damn sorry."

"Doesn't matter," Steve exhaled into Tony's collarbone, "You're here. God, you're here."

"Let me get you down." Steve mourned the loss of contact like he would a body part.

Tony found a clasp along the side of the orbs that disengaged them, and he caught Steve as he collapsed.

"The Quinjet's hours behind me, but we can rendezvous with them at the hospital, we need to get you—" Tony started to tell him, but Steve couldn't bring himself to care about the details at the moment.

"Can we just…" Steve wasn't sure what he wanted. He didn't want to stay here, but he didn't want to move, either.

"I'll help you," Tony promised gently.

Steve just dropped his head to nuzzle his face against Tony's neck again. If Tony was going to let him get away with that sort of thing right now, it was understandable he'd want to abuse it.

"Steve, hey." Tony lifted Steve's head carefully, both hands cupping Steve's cheeks. "Hey, you can't pass out on me, okay? You gotta stay with me, promise me, Steve. Promise you'll stay with me."

"I just…a minute, I just need…"

"Okay," Tony murmured, burying his face in Steve's hair, "Okay."

Neither of them moved for a long time. Steve did his best to absorb Tony's essence, breathing his scent, listening to the whir of the working reactor, feeling the pulse along his neck. _Safesafesafe._ Tony pressed kisses into Steve's hair, murmuring apologies every so often. They were unnecessary, but Steve could tell Tony that later, when he had the energy to speak.

Eventually Tony pressed a firm kiss to Steve's forehead before hoisting him up bridal style.

"Helmet," Steve pointed out. It was still abandoned on the floor somewhere.

"Replaceable. You're not."

Steve fell unconscious long before they even left the compound.

* * *

Steve was in the hospital for a week. Most of his injuries healed within the first twelve hours, but Mantis had all but sliced open Steve's stomach when Tony caught her. That took longer to heal, particularly internally, though he thankfully didn't require surgery. His nails growing back had seemed exceptionally painful, but not enough to bring him to consciousness. Or maybe it was so painful it kept him out, Tony couldn't be sure.

Thor returned from Asgard the moment he heard of Steve's rescue, the first to join Tony at Steve's bedside. It was the closest hospital to the hideout Tony had been able to find, out in the middle of nowheresville, Colorado. He would've made the trip to a bigger, better hospital, but Steve really only needed basic care since his wounds would heal themselves, and the longer trip just would've prolonged Steve's pain.

Bruce joined them maybe an hour later, staying with them in Colorado while Clint and Natasha took the teenagers Tony had found and incapacitated in the hideout back into SHIELD custody. Word was, Libby wasn't talking, Jake hadn't shut up yet about the indignity with which Tony had treated him during his time at SI, and Mason had been the one to tip them off in the first place and was now assisting with the hunt for Himmler. Himmler himself was in the wind, having gone on the run once he'd discovered the police knew who he was.

Natasha and Clint showed up six hours later, around eleven at night, bursting in like they'd run the whole way. Thor gestured to the empty chairs he'd brought in for them, while Bruce told them Steve's medical synopsis. Tony just stayed uncharacteristically withdrawn, quietly curled over Steve's bedside.

Clint asked why they'd been let in so easily, which prompted Thor to launch into the tale about how he had told the "pesky healers" that Steve was under the protection of Asgard, that he was a fine and mighty warrior that had suffered many indignities, and waking up without his friends at his side would not be another.

There was some brief chatter after that, bits and pieces of catch-up about how much Mason had talked, how obnoxious Jake was, how completely deranged Libby was.

"I'm proud of you, man," Clint said at one point, "I know I said you couldn't kill her, but…honestly, I wasn't sure if you'd listen. Not sure I could've blamed you if you hadn't."

"There were more important things to worry about than revenge."

It was true. As much as Tony had wanted to kill her the entire flight over, had even  _imagined_ it, the moment he got there…it wasn't about her. She had been a threat for a minute and he'd removed the threat, but it wasn't about going overboard, about killing her, about revenge. Not then. The moment he'd stepped into the room, it had been entirely about Steve.

Steve's eyes had been vacant, glossed over. His expression hadn't so much as flickered when Tony had entered the room. He hadn't reacted at all until Tony's hasty, impulsive kiss, and even then he'd seemed faded and worn-out.

The others fell silent after that. It wasn't the stressed silences of the past weeks, but one that was finally comfortable again. Thor, Bruce, and Clint each fell asleep over the course of an hour. Tony was unable to, unwilling to take his eyes off Steve, and Natasha was just as vigilant, though perhaps less anxiously.

They didn't speak, aside from one, brief conversation in the dead of night.

"I promised you we'd get him back alive, didn't I?" Natasha took his hand.

Hers were steady over his, and Tony was surprised to find his hands were shaking again. Why was that?

"Tony."

It was a long moment before Tony could bring himself to speak, but Natasha waited in patient silence.

"He was…" Tony waved a hand vaguely, trying not to dwell on the memory of seeing Steve the way he had. "I couldn't…he didn't respond. To anything. I kept talking and I shook him but he just kept  _staring_  at me vacantly, like he didn't even recognize me, and I just…I couldn't bring him out of it and I was so…"

 _Scared._ He didn't say it out loud. He could barely bring himself to think about it. He just…he'd seen Steve, confident, always in control Steve, bleeding out and paralyzed and looking so impossibly lost, and he just…he'd been scared. He wouldn't admit it, but he didn't need to, he knew Natasha knew all too well what he was trying to say.

"He's going to be alright, Tony." Natasha squeezed his hands once, lightly. "I promise."

Tony got sixteen calls over the course of the first night alone, seven from SHIELD, three from Fury himself, but he ignored them all. Fury could chew him out just fine once Steve was conscious.

Steve woke up two nights later, at three in the morning. Thor and Bruce were asleep, Clint had gone up to the roof to think, and Natasha had been called into SHIELD that morning and hadn't yet returned. Tony was on the brink of sleep himself, 72 hours pushing it even for him, when Steve's hand squeezed his.

"Steve!"

"Hey." Steve smiled, a bit weakly, and Tony dove over the side of the bed to hug him.

"Jesus," he muttered into Steve's shoulder, "You can't do that. I told you not to pass out. You promised, you bastard."

"Sorry."

"You're not the one who needs to apologize—"

"And neither are you." Steve was pushing him away now, gripping his shoulders. "Tony, this wasn't your fault. Hey, look at me, I said—"

"Can we just…not talk about this right now? I really, really don't want to argue with you right now."

"Neither do I—"

"Okay, good. Great. It's good to have you back, Steve. I, well, we missed you. Obviously." Tony cast a glance around the room.

Steve probably needed space. He should go, he should let Steve recover, he was sure the last thing Steve wanted was to be surrounded by people, especially people like Tony, who got him kidnapped and fucking tortured—

"Wait, Tony." Steve's hand shot out to stop him, but he hesitated at the last moment, pulled back, his voice confused and a little hurt. "Where are you going?"

"I…" Tony paused, his reasons seeming a lot stupider out loud than in his head. "I thought you might want space."

"I don't." Steve answered simply, his hand landing on Tony's wrist, light as a feather. "Please stay."

Tony couldn't have left then if he wanted to.

He collapsed back into the chair drawn close as possible to Steve's side, linking their fingers together hesitantly. He just nodded, not trusting himself to open his mouth without saying something he couldn't take back.

_This was my fault. I love you. I don't deserve to be near you. I love you. I'll just get you hurt again. I love you._

Steve started talking before he could.

"This is horrible timing, I know, but I…I'm lying here, remembering how it felt thinking I might not get a chance at all, and Tony, I just…" Steve looked up at him, squeezing their linked fingers. If Tony didn't know it was scientifically impossible, he'd have sworn his heart fluttered. "I'm in love with you. Have been for a while now."

Tony mumbled his response somewhere between their lips, a soft, tender contrast to their first kiss, which had been more of an attempt to shock Steve out of his dazed state than anything else. He would say the words properly later, but right now he was still processing the idea, still needed to  _feel_ that Steve loved him more than he needed to hear it, needed to taste it in his kiss.

Steve sat up, shifting in bed to pull Tony in with him. They didn't make out, nothing quite so heated—there were other people in the room, and Steve was still healing—but Steve pulled Tony close to his side, and every so often one or both of them would lean in to steal another kiss. There was nothing rushed about it, nothing that could be described as anything but indulgent and languid.

They fell asleep with their fingers still linked together, Steve's head against Tony's chest, Tony's entire body curled around Steve to protect him in the little ways he could.


	5. Chapter 5

Steve startled awake.

He twisted away, already expecting the burn and sting of electricity. How could he have been stupid enough to fall asleep? The shock never came; instead, he felt something constrict around him. It took Steve a second to realize it wasn't something but someone. It had to be, because there was a cotton t-shirt clenched between his fingers, and he could feel a racing pulse under the tanned skin pressed against his face. As each new detail filtered through Steve's senses, he became more and more bewildered: fingers, gently carding through the hair at the nape of his neck. The rise and fall of a chest pressed to his. Breath ghosting against his forehead, murmured whispers audible only to Steve's ears.

"Shh, it's okay, you're safe, I promise, I'm so sorry, I've got you—"

They went on, but it only took one word for Steve to recognize the voice. He stopped fighting immediately and took a deep breath in, burying his face deeper into the man's neck, surrounding himself with the scent of metal, musk, coffee—Tony. It was Tony's arms around him, one tucked under his shoulder and hooked around his neck, the other flat against his back, gentle but steady.

Warmth blossomed in Steve's chest, relief easing through him as he tried in vain to slow his breathing. He knew it was Tony holding him, knew he'd been rescued and was safe in a hospital somewhere as the memories came trickling back, but the instinctive part of his brain still screaming at him to defend himself hadn't shut down just yet. Tony didn't seem to mind though, continuing to whisper promises and apologies in his ear. Though Steve was larger, Tony had somehow managed to envelop Steve in his arms completely, cradling Steve's face and stroking his hair soothingly, like he was something precious.

Under normal circumstances Steve despised being coddled, but at the moment he was grateful Tony was already doing it so he wouldn't be forced to beg.

Because he needed it. He needed Tony to surround him, to block out the rest of the world for a little while. He needed the buffer, the proof of life, the love. God, Tony actually loved him. Steve had hoped, had even suspected, but it was different to know. Though the timing and reasons for confessing could've been a hell of a lot better, that didn't matter now. What mattered was that wondering if Tony loved him wasn't another worry in a sea of worries that threatened to drown him, but a lifesaver keeping him afloat.

Something in him was wound too tight to relax just yet, and he began to feel his way across Tony's chest in the dark. He found what he was looking for, fingers curling around the edges of the reactor as he flattened his palm over the device. He could feel it hum underneath his hand, the gentle vibration providing some desperately needed reassurance.

He felt Tony tense under the touch though, his shoulders drawing together defensively, his muscles seizing up in alarm. He belatedly realized Tony had every reason to hate people touching it, and withdrew his hand quickly. He could've kicked himself for being so  _stupid._ He had no right to go and touch something so private, so personal, completely out of the blue like that. He'd just—he'd needed—

The arm around his back shifted, and Tony reached a hand between them to take Steve's hand and move it back over the reactor. Tony pulled him closer, kissing his forehead.

"It's just reflex, I'm fine, I trust you, you can—it's still there baby, I've still got the reactor, I'm okay."

Steve swallowed, flexing his hand over the reactor carefully. Tony was fine. It had been a fake, a hologram or something. Something not Tony. It was just that Steve could remember it all too vividly: the pallor of Tony's face as he slumped forward, the streaks of blood across his temple, the wild, desperate look in his eyes as he choked and coughed on the gag—

"Hey, look at me." Tony had a hand under his chin, and he tilted Steve's head up to look him in the eyes. "I'm alive, Steve. And more importantly, so are you. Everyone who laid a fucking hand on you is in custody, and they're staying there. So I need you to stay with me, okay? Can you do that for me?"

Steve moved forward and pressed his lips to Tony's. He let that be his answer, needing…he just  _needed._ Because this was Tony, not some fake, not a dream or mirage, but hisTony; real and alive and warm against him. He pulled at Tony's shirt until they couldn't possibly be closer, reaching up to wrap his arms around Tony's neck and pull him in. He wanted to sink into Tony's skin and stay there forever if he could, and the way Tony kissed him, soft and slow, love in every quirk of his lips, made him imagine that maybe he could.

They fell asleep again relatively soon, Tony curling around Steve protectively once more. They must've made an odd sight; they were as close as could be, no space left between them, and Steve was hunched down, shoulders drawn together, head ducked into the curve of Tony's neck. Steve had a wider frame, and the way he was trying to seem small probably looked silly, but how could he care? He felt completely happy and secure for the first time in weeks, if not years—there was no threat looming over his head, no imminent danger, no torture waiting for him when he opened his eyes.

Hours later, Steve woke again. The world came to him slowly this time, bits and pieces falling into place: a hand rubbing up and down his back, the ruffle of fingers carding through his hair, the soft press of lips against his forehead.

"Is he awa—?" It was Clint's voice, but he was cut off by a sharp shushing sound.

"'m awake," Steve mumbled into Tony's neck reluctantly.

"Way to go, Barton." Steve could feel the sullen rumble of Tony's throat as he spoke.

Then Tony was disentangling himself from Steve, releasing his arms and turning onto his back. Steve probably should've done the same, but he was exhausted and, frankly, he didn't want to. He rolled over instead, burying his face in Tony's shoulder and throwing an arm around the man's waist.

"Um. Hi."

"Hello."

"You know I'm not a pillow, right?"

"Pillows don't smell like robots and expensive cologne, Tony."

"Just checking."

Steve smiled into Tony's shoulder. He couldn't see Tony's face, but he didn't need to see him to know that Tony was making that twitchy, surprised-but-happy sort of smile, the one where he pursed his lips a bit, and his eyes crinkled up at the edges. Tony was his own worst enemy, and if Steve let him, Tony would talk himself into believing that last night had been a dream of sorts, or an accident.

So, drained of energy and still drowsy, Steve summoned the little energy he had to prop himself up and press a quick, decisive kiss to the scruff of Tony's jaw before dropping his head again. Tony's pleased hum rumbled against Steve's cheek, and he just smiled wider.

"Pillows probably also don't cling like velcro—" Clint snickered, but was cut off by a loud smack, "Hey, ow!"

"Don't," Natasha warned.

"How're you feeling, Steve?" Bruce ignored the now bickering spies to ask gently.

Apparently, he couldn't tune out the outside world if he buried his face deep enough into Tony's shoulder. Reluctantly, he surfaced, rolling onto his side but not withdrawing his arm from around Tony's waist.

He looked up blearily. Their teammates were crowded around the hospital bed, awaiting his answer. Clint and Natasha had abandoned their banter, Thor had stopped pacing at the foot of the bed, and Bruce offered him a careful smile. Tony just squeezed his shoulder in support.

"I'm a little winded still," he admitted, "But I suppose I can be ready if you all are."

"Ready?" Clint raised an eyebrow.

"We have to interrogate them, don't we?"

Steve started to sit up, but Tony immediately and forcefully yanked him back down. Steve blinked widely, surprised and caught off guard enough that Tony actually did manage to pin him back down.

"Are you  _insane?"_ Tony gripped him tightly, his nails nearly digging into Steve's arm. "You're not going anywhere  _near_ them!"

"I must second Anthony's sentiment." Thor agreed with a firm nod.

"Not to mention you're not going anywhere at all for at least another day," Bruce added, "Preferably many days, if we can get you to sit still that long."

" _We."_ Natasha gestured to herself and Clint. "We have to talk to them. You have to rest."

"This is as good a time as any to tell you—" Clint looked pointedly at Tony. "—that you aren't allowed at headquarters until further notice either."

"What?" Tony shot up. "What the hell do you mean I'm not allowed?"

"Fury has explicitly banned you both," Natasha informed them, "Personnel have been granted permission to use excessive force if either of you are caught on the grounds."

"Why in the  _hell—"_

"Look me in the eyes and tell me you can be in the same room as them and stay in control of your actions." Natasha didn't miss a beat. Then, before Tony could even begin to continue his protests, she leveled him with a look Steve had no hope of interpreting. "You can't. It would be about revenge, and someone once told me there were more important things to him than revenge."

Tony fell surprisingly silent. He opened his mouth once, then closed it with a look back at Steve. He couldn't quite interpret the look Tony was giving him, though he could sense the fondness of it.

"Well. You better break some bones, Romanov, and I'm talking at _bare_   _minimum."_

"You already put Simmons in the hospital after you threw him through a wall," Clint pointed out with a grin.

"That's the ex-employee, right? Yeah, okay, that was totally satisfying," Tony acknowledged smugly, leaning back in the bed.

He glanced at Steve hesitantly, before moving to link their hands together, clearly moving slowly enough that Steve could move his hand away if he wanted to. Steve closed the distance and took Tony's hand with a smile instead, far too tired to bother with hiding his pleasure at the simple action. And why should he? He was happy for the first time in weeks, Tony ought to know it was because of him.

"You should rest, Steven." Thor told him solemnly. "It is joyous indeed to see you in good health once more, but you have been through many trials and your mind may not yet be as healed as your body."

"He's right." Bruce nodded. "We'll give you some space. Clint and Natasha have interviews to get to, and I'd like a look at your medical charts again anyway."

Much as being coddled usually left a sour taste in Steve's mouth, he could admit the truth in Thor's words. Bruce's excuses were flimsy at best anyway, and he could tell from the man's soft smile it was less about coddling and more about giving him and Tony time alone. Steve had never been more grateful to the doctor and his silent but uncanny ability to read people.

At least, he was until Tony started to leave, letting go of his hand and climbing over the guardrail without so much as a word. Before Steve could lift a hand to stop him however, Clint passed by the bed, grabbed Tony by the face with one hand, and shoved him back into Steve.

"Stark, I swear, you are so fucking stupid sometimes."

Then Clint was gone, filing out the door with the others, leaving an indignant, sputtering Tony in his wake.

"Well  _that_ was rude—"

"Were you really trying to leave again?"

"I, um." Tony paused, rant aborted. "Space? I mean, Bruce said it, so it's technically doctor's orders and all—"

"Tony." Steve took Tony's hands and looked him in the eyes as sincerely as he could, making himself very clear. Tony tended to take a small insecurity and run for the hills with it. While usually amusing, that wasn't the Tony Steve needed right now. "The absolute last thing I need—or want—right now is space from you."

"Oh god, I wasn't dreaming last night, was I?"

Tony's eyes widened a bit; he clearly hadn't meant to say that out loud. From this close, Steve could see just the faintest bit of a flush on Tony's cheeks, and he had the sudden urge to kiss the fleeting pink before it disappeared back under Tony's usually unflappable façade.

So he did.

"It wasn't a dream, Tony."

"I'm going to warn you exactly once that this is a really, really bad decision on your part." Tony was too serious for Steve's liking. He was looking at his hands, and speaking unusually carefully. There was a look on his face that meant he was trying to get across something important though, so Steve stayed silent. "That's…that's all I can do, Steve. I can't take it back, and I won't, because I  _am_  in love with you, but I can only warn you the once because after that, let's be honest here, if you actually want to be with me I'm selfish and petty and I'm going to be so deliriously, stupidly happy that I'm not going to offer you another out."

"Tony—"

"Don't get me wrong, you'll want to leave eventually and I'll let you go, I'm not a fucking psychopath, I just mean…if we do start something, that's it, it's done, sealed, finished, painted in the fucking stars, whatever fancy metaphor you want to use, but if I get ten minutes of you loving me back, I'm always going to want it. You know me, god, you know me too well, I can't do anything by halves, I take an inch and run a mile, I'm too much—"

Steve was done listening. He understood what Tony was trying to do, understood that Tony seemed to think it was important he impress upon Steve that he had the opportunity to back out. Understanding did not, however, mean agreeing. He kissed Tony as emphatically as he could, swiping his tongue across Tony's lips as if he could symbolically wipe away any lingering doubt.

"I want too much," Steve told him between kisses. He pressed the words against Tony's mouth, hoping to imprint them there, a permanent reminder to silence Tony's insecurity. "I want everything. I know who you are. I know what you can be like. I love you for it, Tony, not in spite of it."

There was something akin to wonder in Tony's eyes, and though Steve loved to see him honestly happy like that, he also looked forward to being able to say things like that and get an eye roll, a laugh, a 'you're such a sap, Rogers'. He looked forward to the day Tony believed him.

Until then, he'd just have to prove it.

* * *

Clint was not, generally speaking, a vicious man.

He did what needed to be done, of course. He'd only ever hesitated the once—the Russian Red Room graduate that proved herself to be so much more. Other than that, he did what needed to be done, but he didn't exactly revel in it either. It was a just a job. But this?

This was for pleasure.

He twisted Libby Brockman's arm backwards until he heard the satisfying pop of dislocation. She didn't scream, didn't even shout, just hissed and lurched forward. Her face was an unearthly sort of pale, and she looked up at him with wild eyes and a manic smile.

"That make you feel better, lovely?"

"Not particularly. Where's Himmler?"

"You lack finesse, darling." Brockman smirked. "You have to coax the answers out, you know, not just _demand_  things—"

Clint slammed her head into the table. The metal resounded loudly, and when she lifted her head again, there was a gash on her chin where she'd caught the edge. It was deliciously satisfying.

While part of Clint felt a little bad for depriving Tony of the same satisfaction, he knew it was for the best. While the desire for revenge could eclipse Clint's actions, could keep him here with the kidnapping teenagers for days if he felt like it, Steve needed Tony where he was.

Not to say that Steve probably didn't appreciate his other friends and their attempts at comfort, but Clint knew what torture did to a person. The unconditional love Tony had for Steve was exactly what the recovering man needed.

"Fun as this is," Brockman muttered, pursing her lips in displeasure. "I don't actually know where he is. He ran out on us, or did that part escape your notice?"

"People who kidnap superheroes don't tend to be the most trustworthy of sources."

He was being a bit blithe, but it was true. All three teenagers were telling different stories. SHIELD at large was inclined to believe Mason Hart, as he'd been the one to tip them off and all, but Clint wasn't sure it was as simple as that.

The Simmons kid had talked from minute one, clearly no more than civilian caught up in revenge and in over his head, detailing all about how Himmler had recruited him to exact revenge on Stark. Break a man through his heart, and all that. He went on and on about how Tony had never acknowledged him, how Simmons might as well have been invisible while working at SI. He talked about how he'd tried to hack into the server to prove his worth, but he'd just gotten reprimanded by a superior, that Tony hadn't even noticed how talented Simmons was for getting as far into the server as he had.

Basically, blah blah blah, I'm special, notice me, whine whine whine.

Hart told a different story. While Simmons was claiming Himmler had ordered him to set up a national broadcast so they could best impact Stark, Hart claimed he'd only learned about the broadcasting after they were in the thick of it. He said Himmler had told him that they were kidnapping Steve because he knew the secret of the super soldier serum, and once they got the formula out of him, Himmler believed Hart had the talent to recreate it. Total bullshit, of course, Steve didn't have a clue about the serum's formula, but it seemed Hart had bought it and considered it worth breaking any moral code for. He'd been recruited because of his ground-breaking work in the pharmaceutical field, and he'd been talented enough to develop a sedative strong enough to keep Steve out of action. He'd assumed the others were there for similar, scientific reasons, until he'd seen Brockman in action.

Speak of the devil.

Brockman hadn't talked at first, done nothing but smile eerily anytime she was struck, maybe bat her eyelashes innocently if asked a question. Eventually she'd started talking, but it had been nothing even remotely useful, just comments on ways their interrogation was ineffective and how they were "such silly little dollies" and "missing the point". Many of the other agents were convinced she was hiding something big, and the number one topic of discussion around the water cooler these days was attempts to guess her motives. There were all sorts of theories about why she was involved, but Clint knew better.

Some people didn't need a reason.

He'd seen the tapes. He'd watched her torture his friend, but more than that, he'd seen the pleasure with which she'd done it. He may not have taken particular enjoyment in the things he had to do at times, but in his line of work he'd certainly known people who did. He knew people who were driven to things like this, people who relished in causing pain and suffering. As complexly manipulative as those people could be, they could also be startlingly simple.

Himmler had stumbled across a deranged girl looking for someone to hurt, and he'd offered her just that.

While Clint had no questions about Brockman's twisted motives, Himmler's were still questionable at best. If each teenager was telling the truth, Himmler had likely lied to them all. He'd probably told Simmons it was about revenge on Stark to get his tech expertise, told Hart it was for science to get him to sedate Steve, and given Brockman someone to hurt so Steve would talk. But did Himmler really believe Steve knew the serum's formula though? It seemed like a shot in the dark at best, but saner people had followed crazier hunches.

There were two concise knocks at the door; one was a warning not to go any farther, three meant he was needed elsewhere. Two meant new information, and Clint didn't so much as glance at Brockman on his way out. The last thing he needed was that fucking creepy smile stuck in his head.

"What do we got?"

"Himmler." Natasha gave the slightest quirk of a smile. It might as well have been a full blown grin.

" _Fuck_ yes. Where from?"

"Civilian called the police, local authorities detained him in Las Cruces, New Mexico. We think he was headed for the border. He had a briefcase on him with vials of blood the lab says are a match for Steve's."

"Plan falls to shit, but he makes some money selling super soldier blood on the black market."

"Exactly."

"How's he feel to you?"

Natasha paused, mulling it over.

"He's intelligent. That's unquestionable, pulling this all together the way he did." She shook her head. "But I wouldn't say he's all there."

"You think he's crazy?" Clint asked, then with a shrug, "I'd buy it. Hell, you'd have to be, to try something like this."

"We'll find out, anyway."

* * *

It was almost disappointing how insane Himmler was.

He hadn't seemed that way at first, his silence giving him the impression of quiet indignity. Once they'd got him talking though, Natasha was proven right; he was obviously unbalanced. He had dementia at the very least, and was possibly even a paranoid schizophrenic. Though he spoke with calm, clear conviction, what he actually said was utterly insane.

He claimed he was doing his Fuhrer's work. He said it was his honored duty to disgrace America through the humiliation of their super soldier, and to drag the secrets of the serum from him at any cost. He didn't put up much of a fight, just told them he'd done it for his country, that no one man could stop the master race, etc etc.

"Fuckin' Nazis," Clint grunted, collapsing into one of the hospital chairs by Steve's bed.

By unspoken agreement, the team only visited Steve during regular visiting hours, and for short periods of time. Clint was relatively sure Tony and Steve had worked out whatever bullshit insecurities Tony had concocted by now, but they were still probably best left to themselves; he could only watch them make out so long before it got awkward.

He was happy they'd finally acted on it though. Tony was still Tony and Steve was still Steve, Tony still probably felt guilty as fuck and Steve still probably felt like he'd failed somehow, but at least they had each other. Steve wouldn't let Tony believe for a minute it was his fault, and Tony would give Steve the overwhelmingly selfless kind of love he needed to start to feel safe again.

Basically, if they hadn't resolved their shit, their angsty pining and teenage drama would've driven Clint up the wall crazy.

"Being German doesn't make him a Nazi." Steve raised a disapproving eyebrow at Clint's declaration. "You shouldn't make assumptions like that."

"That's your kidnapper you're defending, Steve." Tony gave a dramatic, long-suffering sigh.

"I'm not saying he's a good person, I'm just saying he can be evil and German and not a Nazi—"

"He told me to my face he took his instructions from Hitler." Clint pointed out dryly.

"…right." Steve sighed. Then, seeing Tony's smug look, "Yes, okay, this one was a Nazi, you can stop gloating."

"Never." Tony just gave a satisfied little smirk, giving Steve a peck on the cheek that Steve "accidentally" turned into a full on kiss.

"I'm still right here guys, but thanks for that." Clint rolled his eyes. "I'm not going to bother giving you updates if you're just going to make out instead of listening to me."

"I'm a genius, I can multi-task." Tony tried to wave him off and keep kissing Steve, but Steve just gave him a playful shove and turned back to Clint.

"We're listening."

"Himmler's getting a psych eval as we speak, but the going assumption is he has dementia or paranoid schizophrenia. He used to be smart—still kind of is, like how he pulled this whole thing together—but he definitely lost his mind somewhere along the way. Either way, he's being locked up for life. Brockman's headed back to a higher security psych ward, Simmons will get jail time, and Hart cut a deal so he's going to jail too, but he's got parole in fifteen years. That's not for a while though, so I wouldn't worry about it."

"I'm not worried—"

"Well,  _I_ am." Tony cut Steve off with a huff. "Y'know, when his parole hearing comes up, I could probably get into the system and make sure their answer is what it should be—"

"Tony." Steve rolled his eyes. "That's not for another fifteen years, leave it be."

"You're being way too blasé about this—"

"And you're being overprotective." Steve gave Tony a soft, fond smile that managed to make Clint feel like he was intruding despite the fact they weren't even touching each other. "It's fine, Tony. I'm fine."

"For now." Tony still looked disgruntled. "What happens in fifteen years when that psychopath gets out and organizes another kidnapping?"

Clint considered telling Tony that the likelihood of that was astronomically high considering Hart had been the one to back out in the first place and had likely only been recruited for his chemical know-how, but Steve was already taking Tony's hand firmly.

"I'm not going anywhere. Are you?"

"Of  _course_  not—"

"Then don't worry about it. If I get kidnapped again, you'll find me, just like if someone is stupid enough to kidnap you, I'll find you." Steve gave a wry smirk. "Though, probably after you've already blown them sky high with a piece of string and a lighter."

"Okay, which one of us suffered a traumatic experience again? Seriously, stop comforting me, I'm supposed to be comforting  _you_ and you're just sitting over there happy as a clam like nothing's wrong—"

"Nothing  _is_ wrong, Tony." Steve just smiled wider. "I've got you."

Clint made a face.

"Well, you lovebirds have fun, I'm gonna scram before this Lifetime movie becomes a porno."

Steve turned ten different shades of red, but Tony just shot Clint a thankful grin before kissing Steve soundly enough that he actually managed to deepen Steve's blush, a feat in and of itself.

 _Idiots._ Clint shook his head with a chuckle as he ducked out the door.  _Strange, lucky idiots._

* * *

They only managed to keep Steve in the hospital another two days, and even then only because Tony all but sat on him for the second day. After that Steve insisted that he was perfectly fine, even laying on the puppy dog eyes and telling Tony that waking up in the hospital just made him feel antsy and disoriented, and he'd feel so much better waking up at home.

Tony knew exactly what Steve was doing.

He caved anyway.

How could he be expected to hold out when Steve was looking at him like that, eyes all wide and earnest and pleading? Tony knew he was totally being played, but it did make some sense—Tony hated the hospital as much as, if not more than, anyone. Waking up with the smell of antiseptic stuck in your nose and cardboard-like sheets scratching your skin wasn't exactly pleasant. Not to mention it was all yet another reminder of everything that had happened, when Steve was really just eager to forget it entirely.

And so what if Tony would do just about anything Steve wanted? This was  _Steve,_ for crying out loud. It wasn't like he was going to trick Tony into selling his soul or bankrupting his company or who knows what else. Besides, against all logic to the contrary,Steve had made it quite clear that he was perfectly happy settling for being with Tony, of all people, and Tony was perfectly happy to let him. By "let him", Tony of course meant cling to Steve enthusiastically and never let him go if at all humanly possible.

Semantics.

Things were perfectly fine until they got home and it turned out Steve's definition of "rest at home" meant training exercises and calls to Fury and generally not stopping moving if at all possible. Tony understood that, he did; he remembered all too well what it felt like when he'd first gotten back from Afghanistan, having all that restless energy and needing to  _do_ something so he didn't have too much time alone in his head.

That didn't mean it was healthy.

He trailed after Steve for the most part, always in the background of whatever Steve was doing, but letting him run some of that manic energy down. They went their separate ways for a little while Steve decimated some punching bags and Tony saw to the upgrades R&D had been begging him for that he'd been too distracted to work on in the past few weeks. He finished up a few hours later, and made his way to the gym without bothering to ask JARVIS where Steve was.

He knew he'd still be there, and he was. It was getting late, even by Tony's standards, and the moment he stepped foot in the gym, he knew Steve hadn't been planning on calling it quits anytime soon.

"I'm well aware of the irony of me being the one to say this," Tony began with a wry smile, "But it's getting pretty late, and you've been down here a while. You doing alright?"

"I'm fine." Steve just shook his head, delivering a one-two combo powerful enough to make Tony wince.

"You don't look fine."

"I'm a soldier, Tony." Steve didn't turn around, but his tone was more exasperated than angry or rebuffing. "I'm not going to fall to pieces because of one traumatic experience."

"Of course not." Tony stepped forward, putting a hand on Steve's shoulder lightly. "But that doesn't mean you're not tired."

Though Steve tried to hide it, Tony could feel him jump.

"I'm not." Steve shook his head.

Even as he denied it, Tony felt Steve melt back into his touch. He dropped his hand from Steve's shoulder and wrapped his arms around him from behind, pressing a kiss between Steve's shoulder blades.

"More than one kind of tired, babe."

"I've spent the last two days sleeping—" Steve seemed to have the distinctly wrong opinion that this made him lazy or, god forbid, weak.

"And before that you were kidnapped and tortured for weeks," Tony reminded as gently as he could. "I want you to be able to forget about this, believe me I do, but repressing and healing are different things. I should know, I've been mixing them up for years."

"So help me." Steve turned in his arms, his hands falling loosely around Tony's waist. "Please, Tony—I need—"

Then he was ducking his head, burying his face in Tony's neck as he had a tendency to do lately. Tony embraced him easily, dropping the argument without hesitation to wrap his arms around Steve and murmur in his ear.

"Hey, it's okay." He pressed a kiss to Steve's cheek. "Anything, baby, anything you want. Just lean on me, alright? That's what I'm here for."

Steve's hands still gripped at Tony's shirt anxiously. Tony could feel Steve's heart race, could feel the slight, almost imperceptible tremor in his hands. He ached for Steve then; ached to help, to heal, to do anything and everything in his power to make Steve feel even the slightest bit better.

Tony took Steve's face in his hands and carefully, softly kissed him. He didn't do it to distract Steve, but to comfort him, to help him relax. Steve melted under his touch, lifting his own hands to cup Tony's and reciprocating hungrily. Steve moved, pushing Tony forward until he had him up against the wall. The kiss soon became needy, even a bit sloppy, and it wasn't long before Steve was tugging at the hem of Tony's shirt.

They hadn't done anything heavier than a bit of light kissing before, and not that Tony wasn't fucking ecstatic about progressing further, but he didn't want to do it at Steve's emotional expense.

"Mm, Steve, hold on." Tony caught Steve's hand, almost unable to believe he was doing it. "There's no rush. I don't…you're going through this awful thing, I don't want to take advantage—"

"Tony." Steve seized his face with both hands, bringing their foreheads together.

He'd probably meant to say more, but the way he said Tony's name was enough. He said it like it was all encompassing, like Tony was Steve's sun, his moon, his stars, breathing his name in like a drowning man taking his first clear breath of fresh air.

Tony lost himself a bit after that. Who could blame him? Steve was everything to him, and Tony couldn't be anything but desperately thankful that in spite of everything they'd been through, they'd still somehow managed to end up here, together.

They eventually made it out of the gym, up the elevator and into Steve's room. It was closer, but Tony would've directed them there anyway; if Steve slept in his own bed, he might be less likely to panic when he woke up. They stripped quickly, losing both their shirts and Steve's pants before they tumbled into bed. Their kissing had a frantic edge to it, right up until Steve pulled back briefly to give Tony a happy, lusty smile that promptly dropped right off his face.

Steve startled badly. He scrambled backwards, hands clenching and unclenching tightly, eyes wide with terror, face going ghostly pale. He swallowed hard, climbing off the bed, holding out his hands in a clear sign for space and giving Tony a wild, terrified look. He looked like he was having a panic attack, and though Tony ached to get up, to hold him, to  _do_ something, Steve just kept shaking his head fiercely anytime Tony moved.

He stayed on the bed, sitting up and watching Steve patiently. Steve stayed where he was for a long moment, struggling to regain control of himself, before he sank to the floor and pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. Tony took that as permission to move, and he joined Steve on the floor.

"Steve." He tested the waters, saying Steve's name carefully, reaching out a hand slowly. "Steve, it's me. It's just Tony. Could I—?"

Steve shot forward before he could even finish the question, hugging him so hard Tony rocked backwards a bit. He clutched Steve's bicep for stability—which, hey, mostly naked Steve in his arms, life was awesome, scratch that, panicking Steve, shut up brain—and pulled Steve close to his chest.

"What happened, baby, what's wrong?"

Steve just shook his head. Instead of answering, Steve withdrew from his arms and raised a hand. He rubbed a thumb over the series of rather impressive blossoming hickeys now lining Tony's neck. He bent forward, pressing his forehead against Tony's reactor without moving his hand. He inhaled slowly, then exhaled, before pressing a kiss to the reactor, then above it. He peppered kisses up Tony's chest, across his clavicle, to his shoulder.

Cautious of startling Steve again, Tony stayed perfectly still and let him explore. Steve rubbed his hands up and down Tony's arms, kissing his way up Tony's neck, his cheek, his forehead, finally his lips.

"I'm sorry," Steve murmured against his mouth, not even fully drawing away.

"Stop apologizing," Tony insisted, "It's ridiculous and entirely unnecessary."

"I will when you do." Steve offered him a small, wry smile.

"Fair point." Tony gave an easy smile in return. "Can you tell me what happened?"

"I just…" Steve shook his head, brushing his fingers over the hickeys again. "Rationally, I know what they are and that they don't hurt. They just…I caught sight of them out of the corner of my eye, they looked like…"

Steve trailed off, but he didn't really need to finish. Tony had seen his beat-up doppelganger on the screen, he knew exactly what it reminded Steve of.

"I'm okay, Steve," Tony reminded him gently, "I'm okay, I'm right here, and I'm not going anywhere. I'm also very concerned that most of your worries seem to stem from fake-me having been in trouble and not the part where you actually were, but we can deal with that later." Tony pressed a kiss to Steve's forehead. "Why don't we get you to bed?"

"I'm sorry, I know I ruined the mood—" Steve ducked his head, looking at his hands with an utterly miserable expression, and Tony gave a huff of exasperation.

"If you apologize one more time for having a completely rational and entirely justified panic attack, Steve, I swear to god—" Tony threw his hands up. "I don't even know what to do with you. Just come to bed, I care a hell of a lot more about making sure you're healing than getting a roll in the hay."

"I know you do," Steve quickly amended, a bit of pink gracing his cheeks, "I…I wanted to, though."

"Why, Captain Rogers." Tony gave Steve an amused, teasing look. "Are you telling me you want into my pants?"

"And here I thought I'd made my intentions obvious." Steve's eyes flicked to Tony's discarded belt elsewhere on the floor with a flicker of a smile.

"There's no rush, y'know."

"I know."

"Okay."

A brief moment of silence stretched between them before Steve was pulling Tony into his lap. There was less fire this time, less intense, edgy energy and more slow-building passion. They stayed on the floor a little while, until Steve decided Tony had been wearing pants for far too long and hoisted him up onto the bed. Tony managed to wiggle out of his pants without breaking the kiss, and Steve gave a chuckle at Tony's eagerness that Tony just swallowed with a unashamed grin.

Tony wasn't typically one for mushy phrases like "make love", but it seemed equally weird to label what they did as simple "sex". There had never been anything particularly special about sex to Tony. He could get it from just about anyone he put his mind to snagging, it wasn't exactly a rare or unique experience. He'd had plenty of sex, plenty of ways; frankly, he considered himself a bit of an expert at this point.

He was not prepared for sex with Steve Rogers.

That's not to say that Steve did anything particularly strange or unusual in bed. The actions, in and of themselves, had not been anything Tony hadn't experienced before. It was the connection they'd made, the emotions involved, that Tony had been completely blindsided by.

He'd known he loved Steve, known it for months now. It wasn't news to him, but the  _depth_ of his devotion to Steve, the joy he felt at having it returned, hadn't quite clicked until just then. Not until he had Steve, gorgeous, perfect Steve, pinning him to the bed, impassioned and tender in equal turn. Not until he had Steve kissing  _I love you_ 's into every reachable inch of Tony's skin, his expression nothing but peace and bliss as his body eclipsed Tony's.

It was silly and clichéd and Tony knew better than anyone that happy endings were a pipe dream, but as he held Steve close to his chest, listening to his soft snores and reveling in the warm weight of a hand closed protectively over his reactor, he knew sex with Steve wasn't just "sex". It was making love, ridiculous as the phrase sounded even in his head, and Tony knew it was irreplaceable.

* * *

The next few weeks were difficult, to say the least. Steve woke up at least once a night at first, if not two or three times. He didn't just wake up, either; he jerked awake, shooting forward, limbs flying out, eyes wild and desperate until he managed to get a hand on Tony's reactor. Considering Tony's general dislike of people so much as breathing on the thing, being awakened in the middle of the night by someone grabbing at his life source was not a super fun experience.

Steve needed it though, so Tony coped.

Steve also went through about a dozen moods a day, everything from passively content to darkly depressed, tending to be soft-spoken and edgy in between. Sometimes he was perfectly normal, exactly the same as he'd been before anything had happened. Sometimes he was dependent entirely on Tony, clingy and needy and only happy when Tony was talking to or touching him. Sometimes he needed space and snapped at anyone who came to see him, isolating himself for hours if not days.

Tony always made it a point to check on him every few hours or so during those moods. He was usually curtly rejected the first handful of times, until Steve was done trying to be alone and had shifted to moping and feeling guilty for pushing Tony away. After Tony assured him once again that he was a big boy and could handle Steve needing space sometimes, Steve tended to spend the next few hours kissing apologies to every inch of Tony's skin, a mood shift Tony was more than okay with.

It was hard at times. Starting a new relationship in the aftermath of all that had happened was good in some ways, like that Steve had someone to lean on as heavily as he needed to, but also caused some tension. What might've been their honeymoon phase was clouded by insecurity and anxiety, each worried they were taking too much and not giving enough.

Life had a way of smoothing things out, though.

Steve had been benched by Fury for a month after the incident, but at the end of the month when the call to assemble came, Tony had been desperate to stop Steve from going anyway. They'd had an explosive argument that ended with Steve going, and neither speaking to the other long after the giant squid had been evacuated from Manhattan.

They made up of course, but more importantly, having their first real, honest  _fight_ since getting together smoothed out the awkward, nervous edges of their relationship. They got along better after that, able to bicker again like they used to without worrying about driving each other away, mostly when Steve felt Tony was coddling him too much or when Tony thought Steve was being too hard on himself.

Weeks became months became years, and life went on about as smoothly as could be expected in the life of a superhero. Steve's middle of the night panic attacks became far less frequent, and his nightmares and mood swings eventually came no more often than Tony's own. Their relationship weathered everything from body snatching aliens to mythological sea creatures, as well as plenty of disagreements on the home front.

Tony talked about marriage twice before he actually proposed. Technically three times, if the letter counted, and considering Steve kept it until the day he died, he supposed it did.

The first time was soon after their third anniversary. It was a slurred, drunken voicemail detailing for almost ten solid minutes why marriage was a stupid, trivial institution that did nothing but kill romance and bring an end to consistently awesome sex. Then, after five minutes of being sidetracked by detailing exactly howawesome said sex was, Tony went quiet for a long moment before mumbling forlornly, "So how come I wanna?" and ending the call.

Tony clearly didn't remember calling him, and Steve didn't bring it up. Tony was funny about the idea of permanence. He would easily mention in passing things like "you'd better still love me when I have wrinkles, Rogers", or "I am so holding that over your head for the next twenty years", but if the topic of marriage came up, for them or anyone else, Tony would do anything and everything in his power to immediately exit stage left.

So for the most part, Steve didn't mention it. He was content, honestly. Did he want to marry Tony someday? Of course he did, but he was perfectly happy with what they had, and he had no trouble waiting until Tony could settle his issues with the idea of it. The voicemail was proof that he'd thought about it at least vaguely, and knowing that Tony had considered it was good enough for Steve.

He found the letter next. Well, more accurately, JARVIS suggested that maybe Steve ought to empty the workshop wastebasket personally that day. A strange request, but Steve had learned a long time ago that just because JARVIS had to follow Tony's orders didn't always mean he couldn't find a way around them if he disagreed with Tony's decisions.

In emptying the wastebasket, Steve discovered a letter entitled "42 Reasons To Suck It Up and Tie Steve Down Before He Can Run Away". He sat down, in the middle of the workshop, and read it four times before he managed to stand up again. The handwriting was rushed and sloppy, but it was clearly, painfully honest and heartbreakingly romantic in a way that was so perfectly Tony.

Steve tried not to say anything, but Tony noticed almost immediately something was different. He didn't ask for a while, just watched Steve suspiciously out of the corner of his eye.

"Out with it already." Tony finally demanded after they'd brushed their teeth for bed, poking him with his toothbrush. "You've been looking at me weird all day."

"It's nothing, Tony." Steve wrapped an arm around Tony's waist, tugging close and pressing a kiss to his forehead.

"No, see, you're making the face."

"Am I?" Steve smiled. "According to you, I have a lot of faces."

"This is the It's A Really Important Nothing face."

"I'd ask if you could let this go, but I have three years experience with you telling me what a stupid question that would be."

"Look at that, you're learning." Tony grinned cheekily.

"I have a wonderful teacher." Steve dipped his head to kiss Tony soundly.

Tony knew Steve far too well not to know exactly what Steve was doing, but he let Steve distract him with sex anyway. Later, just before Steve fell asleep, Tony brought it back up.

"I know you're asleep," Tony murmured into Steve's hair. Steve stayed still; saying something like that was Tony-ese for 'I know you're awake, but I don't want to admit it because that means I might be held responsible for what I'm about to say'. "But I also know you found the letter, and…I think I wanted you to. Because I meant it. And I want it. Which is terrifying in and of the fact that it's not, but. I love you, and I don't think there's anything in the world I couldn't do with you next to me."

It wasn't a proposal, but it was damn close. Steve rolled closer to Tony, shifting them so he could wrap an arm around Tony from behind and kiss his neck.

"You were supposed to be asleep," Tony muttered somewhat sullenly.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Steve just hummed into Tony's skin, unable and unwilling to keep the smile off his lips, "Love you though."

"Yeah, yeah. Love you too, cuddlebug." Tony tried to sound grumpy about Steve nuzzling him, but the effect was sort of ruined when he gave in and snuggled into Steve's embrace.

Tony's actual proposal was surprisingly simple.

There was nothing special about the day he did it, or the date they'd gone on beforehand. It was a lovely evening out and Steve had a great time of course, he always did when Tony was involved, but there was nothing about the night to suggest Tony had been planning on proposing; which, in and of itself, meant Tony must've put an incredible amount of effort into keeping it off Steve's radar. They'd gone out for an early dinner, caught a movie, and were walking through Central Park when Tony bent to tie his shoelaces.

Or so Steve had thought.

Then he was turning to see Tony with a ring box, an embarrassed little half-smile, and blinding hope in his eyes.

"I told you once if you gave me an inch of love, I'd run a mile. Well, you've given me a hell of a lot more love than I could've hoped for, and I was kind of hoping we could turn that mile into a marathon."

Steve remembered when Tony had told him that. He'd been kidnapped—what was it, three and half years ago now?—and the morning after his rescue and their subsequent confessions, Tony had told him he was too much. He said that given an inch he'd run a mile, already assuming Steve wouldn't want that. Something in Steve was so fiercely, wonderfully proud to have finally proved him wrong. He must've been silent a second too long though, because Tony's face crumpled and he started rambling.

"Sorry, that sounded better in my head, god, that was really awful, wasn't it? You probably don't even remember, I can't believe I just proposed to you with some ridiculously cheesy metaphor, let me start over—"

"Don't." Steve smiled softly, taking the ring from Tony's hands and tugging him up for a kiss. "It's perfect."


	6. Epilogue

42 Reasons To Suck It Up and Tie Steve Down Before He Can Run Away

1\. The thousand different and equally adorable blushes.

2\. General facial area and it's fantastically distracting attractiveness.

3\. I can always read the faces he makes. All of them.

4\. His illegal and unfair use of the puppy dog eyes.

5\. Captain America command voice.

6\. Captain America spandex.

7\. Can fuck me against a wall with one hand. Mildly emasculating, wildly sexy.

8\. That thing he does with his tongue.

9\. The White Shirt Of Sexual Frustration—enough said.

10\. The smiley face breakfasts when I have morning meetings. They're silly and pointless but I've been unable to disprove that they make the meetings better. Well, tolerable.

11\. The reactor doesn't keep him up. Hell, he  _likes_ it.

12\. Understands the complex and hectic scheduling issues involved with superhero-dom/running SI, and doesn't hold cancelled dates against me.

13\. Only person I have ever and will ever let dip me.

14\. Artist's hands.

15\. The way he rubs his hand over his face to hide his grin when I'm being equal parts annoying and funny.

16\. He says "gosh". Genuinely.

17\. Smells like leather and pine trees. That wasn't hot before him.

18\. Puts up with my endless and increasingly ridiculous pet names.

19\. The way his hair looks all floppy and mussed up in the mornings.

20\. His surprisingly and delightfully dirty sense of humor.

21\. He's somehow managed to give me a military dress kink.

22\. Which probably means he'd also look fantastic in a tux. But that's sort of a given since he'd look fantastic in a paper bag.

23\. Those stupid little sticky notes he leaves everywhere when he goes on missions and the way they make me smile.

24\. The way he bites his lip.

25\. Gives absolutely no shits about how much money I have. I'm pretty sure if anything, it annoys him.

26\. Always, infuriatingly able to tell the difference between my smiles.

27\. Knows how I'm going to take my coffee by looking at my face.

28\. Come to think of it, he might be psychic. Look into this.

29\. He's really, really snuggly.

30\. Best hugs.

31\. Best kisses.

32\. Best sex.

33\. Makes everything better purely by virtue of his existence.

34\. Thinks I'm worth it.

35\. Makes me think I might be worth it.

36\. Makes coming out of the workshop before four am worth it.

37\. Makes waking up before noon worth the whole "morning" part.

38\. Always listens. Even when he doesn't like what I have to say. Even when he doesn't understand. Even when  _I'm_ not listening to what I'm saying.

39\. The whiny-but-trying-not-to-be-whiny face he makes when he thinks I'm not paying enough attention to him.

40\. The bots approve. Enthusiastically, if the wedding planning websites JARVIS keeps "accidentally" letting pop up are any indication.

41\. Three years and I'm somehow not bored or antsy or feeling trapped.

42\. 42 is the meaning of life, and all available evidence has proved that he's the meaning of mine.


End file.
